| ZYGOTE IN MY COFFEE.COM |
| ***BIO*** Donald Illich has published poems in The Iowa Review, Fourteen Hills, and New Zoo Poetry Review. He has poems forthcoming in several journals, including Passages North, Nimrod, LIT, The Sulphur River Literary Review, Plainsongs, CrossConnect Magazine, Xavier Review, and Cold Mountain Review. He works as a writer in Rockville, Maryland. My Web site is www.floatnotswim.com. |
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| © 2006 zygoteinmycoffee Ink. |
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| The Hungry Hippopotamus |
| by Donald Illich |
| Most strange of all is the hippopotamus
who stops eating plants to feed on people. We could say: it’s bad parenting, captivity drives the little pups crazy, industrial toxins slip into their water, animals are irresponsible about everything. I think it’s the fault of carnivores the next cage over. They kept blabbing about how delicious gazelle is, how humans taste better than grasses and weeds. We can lock them up, strand them without fresh water or open air, jungles a dream, mates a pin-up fantasy, pink sows swallowing scattered balls. When they’re freed, though, they’ll ask the jailor for their teeth, sharpened on the zoo’s gate, and maps to stars’ homes, famous constellations of prey. Their pals, tigers and lions at the circus, have plans for dirty jobs, no paw prints necessary. They’ll blame serial killers, stalkers of celebrities, not the hippo, which rampages through their backyards. It stomps daisies, swallows the boy jumping for the Nerf football, who falls into its seemingly harmless mouth. |
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| Oct. 2006 |
| 68 |