Little Animal

Pee here.  I’ll turn away.  I won’t look.  The black

raspberry patch, the patch by the tracks where he

smashes berries on my cheek.  Sit there.  It’s funny. 

I think it is funny.  Long I echo.  Beneath my toes

there’s tar from the bubbling road.  I’m fizzy.  I’m

Victorian scratching my hangnail, blood reaching

for black, black-rasping berries like curdled stomach

shredded open.  Never seen.  Never seen one before. 

A groundhog up-close, hit by the five o’ clock train.

It doesn’t hurt, stupid.  It is a little stupid, stupid

little animal, so near the tracks and all.  I hear you

all say it.  You’ll say it out loud, moralizing to decay.