THROWBACK THURSDAY
Image by Louise Dickinson-Brown
QUERULE
By Lewis Turco
"Why?" it asks, and snivels.
I must get rid of it. It
makes me nervous, annoys me.
"Why?" it asks, a tear sliding down
its throat, making its whine slick as slime.
Its body reminds me
of gobbets. "But why?" it asks
again. It hangs around and
hangs around. It has no teeth, just
gums. It is a parasite, a sorn.
It sobs. "Why?" it cries. "Why?"
I pick it up, look at it
deeply, probe its mucous eyes.
Holding it, my hands feel cold and
sticky, like my stare. "Because," I say,
"just because. That's the way
it is. Enjoy it, why don't
you?" "I do," it moans, "I do, I do!"
From an unpublished manuscript, A Book of Beasts, poems by Lewis Turco, illustrations by Louise Dickinson-Brown; the poems may be found in Fearful Pleasures: The Complete Poems of Lewis Turco 1959-2007, Scottsdale, AZ: www.StarCloudPress.com, 2007. ISBN 978-1-932842-19-7, cloth; ISBN 978-1-932842-20-3, paper. Also available in a Kindle edition.
