(an old one)
SHAPE SHIFTING
Last night for my dinner
I slit open a womb of squash,
scooped out the papery ivory eggs,
sliced a green-white onion body so wet and alive
the two halves would not fit tight together.
I made a salad of living things,
infants of broccoli and radish;
dressed it with the blood of olive and grape.
The boundaries are not clear.
This morning the dog dug a nest of mice
out of long grass, swallowed the babies
like little pink pills. They slid easy
down her throat: wriggling embryos
dissolving in her stomach,
becoming dog.
I commend them to their god.
And there was a time I read an article
about a wildlife biologist summoned
to investigate the death of a woman
by mountain lion. It happens more often
than you’d think. He tracked the beast,
found its cache in a litter of leaves.
He said, “I hate to tell you, but what was left
looked an awful lot like meat.”
Grolier Poetry Prize Runner-up, 2001
