Off to Work
Here he is, dressed in the tacky
wrapping paper of plaid
and roses. Passing an opossum flat among
its scattered young. Maybe
this is what things look like
when humans aren’t around. The surplus
store on an impoverished hillside. The mind
in its own place. Hemmed in
among the lungwort, “I paid
my way” the stoat snurls. While
Badger’s all spatter and blubber—a knife
smeared with butter left
on the tablecloth. “There were lots of times
I didn’t love . . . ,” he
sighs past his coffee. He doesn’t add
up. Doesn’t have a hustle,
so much as a way of simply staying alive. 
Vicious Only When Necessary
Badger on the Whaler
Hothouse
Off to Work
On the Shrink’s Couch