Aaron Belz
To Avert Calamity
Someone needs to unthrone this jackalope
but quick! Already tinier beasts gather
in the woods, under cover of the news,
to appoint themselves a this or that. I say.
Back in our day, if a large, unwieldy
sales-monster came lumbering through the yard
we knew why Mama kept a broom
by the front door and where Papa kept his gun;
yet this, our civilized horde of like-minded
so-and-so’s, can’t seem to raise its sight
to the King Harlequin that’s taking it
from behind, and maybe that’s why! No good
angle on the beast while it huffs. No
clean shot at it. Already smaller offspring
(are they offspring?) fall from its pouch
like alien spawn, their eyes opening
wide upon the sunlit greens of our Fair Capital
their wet and tender loins unfurling,
drooping to the sod, ker-plunk.
I know the midnight meetings well enough,
my friends; I’ve been to them before.
I know what they decide at them,
and it isn’t right. Someone needs to get
the feathers and hot tar and send this P.O.S.
back to Vegas or wherever his glittering
suit will be at home, to man whatever sideshow
he’s best at barking for, draw them in:
Draw those patrons in, not these. Not us.
This ain’t a lowdown show of barbarousness.
Aaron Belz Aaron Belz’s books include Glitter Bomb (Persea, 2014) and Lovely, Raspberry (Persea, 2010). His poems have appeared in Boston Review, Fence, The Washington Post, and many other places. He lives in Hillsborough, NC, where he owns a bicycle shop with his son.
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