Classic Poem

My teeth are chipped like a monk
Inside my face

I eat nuts and leaves and grass and trees
And bury the choicest morsels for safekeeping

I scamper in and out of dark, wet holes
Up and down dead trunks and fallen limbs

Looking for the shelter of a warm, embracing burrow
And I can’t understand

(Perhaps you might explain why)
Chicks find me so unattractive.


(Previously published in The Short North Gazette, Sept 2000)