Two Poems

Fox beat Crow with a club, dragged Crow by the feathers. Fox raped Crow. Crow lopped off its own breast, shot arrows at Fox. Fox broke the arrows, spit on Crow, called Crow a myth. Crow’s pleasure was a spilling cup, so Fox sewed Crow’s pleasure up. Crow waved a crocheted flag of Crow, which Fox burned. Crow heard voices ordering, Fight, Crow, fight! Fox gave such resistance a name, a school of thought Crow was forbidden to learn about. Fox tied Crow to the stake. Roasted & cannibalized Crow & wrote stories about it, allegories: Fox riding over Crow with a train; feeding Crow ratsbane; posing as Crow’s father, dandling Crow on Fox’s knee. Crow stormed out, slammed the door. Why, said Fox, do you not behave? Can’t you accept an apology?

The Prince with No Asshole

They kept him in the dark about the dark at the bottom of himself. Courtiers swaddled the prince in silk diapers. His bowel movements they called “sovereign thunder,” an omen portending good weather. As he defecated they trotted in a choir of children who sang of the prince’s fame & glory, in his face. The priest explained, one never touches down there (just one of the many spaces in the castle, like the War Room & the dungeon, attendants distracted him from). Perhaps he was not the smartest prince. As an adult, he turned cruel. From his balcony, peering down at the masses applauding him, the prince held his nose & cried, “They excrete what they eat? How gauche!” & shot a ruby- studded musket into the throng. One boy in his retinue had eyes like lanterns on the boat of the dead. The prince dreamt of him. He summoned the boy to his bedchamber, naked. He let the naked boy remove his gown, even his imperial diaper. The boy kissed him, tenderly. The prince stared dreamily out the window. As the boy slipped a finger into the royal anus, the prince ejaculated at once. Then he called out, “Off with his head!” At the execution, the prince was overheard saying, “One as pure as me should never love.”