The Retrospective

An ocelot,
in double denim. Or the goose, in a wig of cheese-
string yellow. Even a snake, coiled
in its own fake-furry assemblage, thrown together
without command, sourced
from boundless impulse, and chosen
after all necessary deliberation expended
for a great day out
of one’s choosing.

It was an Eden. It was amongst the proudest
epochs of history

                                       that years later
when it had all been forgotten – a memory
rubbished and re-written, as if it were not
expression, not natural, not intended but
something dangerous and other
worldly, a false belief and
its artificial idea, even
though they claimed to be men, and despite those
who shouted at it, and shat on it, and vowed against it
being made –
would be looked upon, with eyes
themselves burnt-out, self-suffocated into ash, black
holes
that hauled in their sympathy, and the knowledge
of all that was accepted, fondly, and miserably,
during that more optimistic time,
in their slow, desperate voyage
to the slaughterhouse.