1.
Elephants hate to fuck,
their horns aloft,
               in March, in herds
they’re mountains
       without knees, or joints:
they do not fall,
or sleep
on their sides, but recall
every breath, every lazy bone
of all their dead.

2.
The hyena serves neither God
nor Mammon, is male one moment
and female the next,
                       its double mind,
a stone in its eye turning round
whenever it has an idea.
When humans talk inside, it lurks
inside their mouths, and lives
on the bodies of dead,
consuming their bellies. And so,
it laughs and laughs and laughs.

3.
The lynx is a lynx is a lynx
and its piss is worn on the breasts
by pious women.

4.
A rhinoceros that leaps on the lap
of a virgin
               is an unlucky
rhinoceros, for by such means
is he caught,
               like Jesus in
Mary’s womb.

copyright,  © 2007 Eric Reymond