With lunar phrases I cry to diorama houses—
adrenaline, scorn—on your hills I prowl
to the frisk of minor keys, Ha,
a “gullible vermin”—lecherous, deceitful, immoral, vile,
remembering towns before rivers bequeathed them to highways, Ha,
Roosevelt’s “beasts of waste and desolation,” Ha,
Nelson’s Denver-to-Disappointment-Valley kill machine, Ha,
5 million scalps, 7 million,
strychnine and thallium sulfate, Compound 1080, Ha,
recommissioned Jeeps, mounted rifles with high-powered scopes,
a map’s crisp elevations,
peripherals and foolproof systems, Ha,
Predator & Rodent Control Branch of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
(joke sister of the “Bureau of Indian Affairs”) Ha, Ha,
aerial hunting from copters, Ha, dying rabbit calls, Ha,
rabbit calls leading to hounds,
sterilizations, bait carcasses
with cubes of poisoned animal fat stuffed inside, Ha,
toxic collars on sheep, Ha, beyond, Ha,
beyond Bering Strait and shamanic ledge, beyond coyotl, iisaw, Canis latrans, Ha,
Guatemala, Alaska, Ha,
Gary Snyder, Ha,
mad druggists, bounties, self-made gurus, Ha,
heil my tongue of action,
my tail-flag, maw, and muzzle,
on terrain claimed with your reared-and-ready bodies, Ha,
your grief, your boundaries, your so-called wound
and wounded, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha.
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