Matthew Kirkpatrick

Animal Attacks

A single brown nail bent works its way from a single length of brittle timber. A row of crows watch as the timber falls. Hear that scraping above their heads a falcon tearing at power lines. Sparks fizzle falling down and burn our hair. Hear those chickens clucking away shaking their crates about to fall from the back of the truck and scatter across the highway lanes.

Hear an ice cube drop into another drink. A ladder dropped against aluminum siding for us to climb and clear away the gutter junk and possums and squirrels. Hear them turning over the trashcans at night.

Hear the twitch of the lighter.

All the birds conspiring against us jamming jet engines and taking down choppers.

The raccoon the size of a dog is not just watching.

The cat clawing at my chest trying to steal my breath at night. The cat’s lips pressed against mine her eyes staring into mine. Later the cat warm next to the long iguana stretched across the top of the couch looking at me when I come home from work and the two of them have been alone together all day.

The dog pulling at his leash trying to take us into traffic. The fish biting my hands when I clean their tank. The fish jumping out of the tank onto the tangle of power cords trying to sizzle the strip and burn down the house when we are alone for the weekend.

The spiders crawling up from the basement on hot nights crawling into our mouths and burrowing deep in our throats.

When you fell off the side of the raft white watering down the Zambezi I could see in your eyes that you thought I wanted to leave you there in the brown water for the crocodiles and bull sharks and brown water full of parasites.