BAS Poetry: Animals by Taylor Melligan

Broke-Ass Stuart is now accepting poetry submissions to be featured in the BAS Poetry: Arts & Culture column. Written & curated by Corinne Avganim.

Well, that was a doozy of a couple of months, but I’m back with a special two part feature of poetry by fellow San Franciscan, Taylor Melligan. These two poems of course caught my eye as I’ve been pretty much starving for anything and everything not real world news related. So, without further ado, I give you Taylor Melligan’s poems with animal titles that aren’t really about animals at all.

CATS

The only light tonight
the flashing of the oil rigs beyond the river
The shotgun houses dark,
the streets deserted as
Six Flags after the hurricane
when the bumper cars lay on their sides
and the alligators moved into the wave pool
The stop signs beyond my window
wait for nobody
and nobody knows I’m here.
Too much wine and a slip on
the slick bathroom floor
wouldn’t bring anyone running
Indeed, it could be weeks before somebody
smelled me.
I might as well be a spinster who
dies in front of her TV
watching Judge Judy
her decomposing body
eaten by her cats
but
I don’t have a TV
and I don’t have any cats.
*

SQUIRREL

Nighttime clickety-clack of the dog
gnashing his teeth
In his dreams he sprints after a squirrel and
devours it
tearing the raggedy pelted flesh
and crunching each bone with the relish
of a gourmand savoring
a marrow delicacy on toast
at the French Laundry.
I wish that I desired anything
that dearly—
Yearned for it with such a longing
that I saw it in my dreams
and ran after it fast as I could,
That I stood shuddering
when it appeared before me,
my every sense like the razor’s edge
every fiber of me alert
with hunger beyond
reason
*

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