Plushophilia

I saw about thirty of them
in a parking lot by the edge
of the woods
all dressed up
in animal costumes –
roosters, rabbits,
horses, bulls.
From what I’ve been told,
they enter the wilderness
for the night
and fuck each other.

It’s a dog’s day to skin a rabbit,
pull its pelt right off,
to be a frog tongue-whacking
a fly from the center
of a rose’s sweet spot,
a bat caught in too much light,
a pony taking the prize,
a little piggy going to market.

The cat can’t help
but slosh the milk
on his whiskers;
the oyster can’t help
but spit into its wound.
There’s something about
turning a bug upside
down until those legs reach
for a wanting sky,
something about
spraying a porcupine
in the face.

It’s a stupid question to ask,
but why not –
How much wood could
a woodchuck chuck
if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
After all, it can’t
toss a boomerang
right into the roo’s pouch,
it can’t pitch wood
quite like a beaver.


The mouse ate the cheese.
The mouse is in the cat.
The dog swallowed the cat.
The dog is in the horse.
The horse is in the cow.

Somebody must have
swallowed the fly.

by Kurt Shinian