I can’t sleep.
The squirrels are fucking
Again. In my wall.
I can hear them:
Nails across wood,
Excited chatter,
Then finally a sound I imagine
As the female’s sigh of satisfaction—
Over and over.
They fuck
All night long.

The whole world is fucking.

I picture the young couple next door—
The husband
Steely-eyed, square-jawed,
His thin, blond wife,
Clothes always clinging
To her jogger’s frame— writhing
On bed sheets, their tanned bodies
All muscle and sweat, making love
In the blue glow of their television set—
And I hate them.

It’s a kind of luck to be born a squirrel,
Dumb to all the menace of sex.
They live free from dignity
And—if they’re lucky—
Exit dramatically,
Plummeting from a leafy tree-top
To the street, crushed
Beneath the wheels of an Oldsmobile,
Transformed into a gray and red splatter
That curious children come to poke with sticks.
Squirrels never suffer, not really.
If you ever look into their vacant, black eyes,
You will know this is true.