A Bop
Reports note Crocodiles with leather purses. Mountain
Goats in puff sleeve boho shirts. Animals foregoing
shoes, and girls, now Toucans, selling their Kia
Souls to fly wingtip-to-wingtip to work, while Rabbits
sleep on their husbands’ heads, hearts beating slow
despite the predators next door.
Women are becoming animals, becoming animals.
Reports note women have turned into Seahorses
and are leaving their husbands to find monogamy and/or
sadness in the ocean. Polar Bears have left marriages
to demolish data centers. Openings for maids, nannies
and waitresses have skyrocketed, and Praying Mantis
pause with green heads over the bodies of their lovers.
Councilors. Presidents. With no laws to bind them,
it’s only a matter of time until they strike.
Women are becoming animals, becoming animals.
With the economy collapsing, men have no choice
but to get violent. To strike small heads on cement.
They were someone’s daughter. Now they’re a dead
gazelle bleeding out in the street. They were someone’s
wife. Now they’re a mouse, with heart and ribs crushed
in their husband’s palm. On a TV an anchor reads:
“Watch yourselves. Women are becoming animals, becoming animals.”
Emily Garland is a queer poet from Regina, Saskatchewan. She shares her life with twelve (yes, twelve) dogs, and if she ever turns into an animal, it’ll probably be an ostrich—because who needs wings when you can kick the shit out of everything.
