Humans in white shorts

are vulnerable

yet strangely aggressive.

What with their bare-legged dexterity,

if you’re a bug

there’s nowhere to hide.

The hand is mightier

than a horse’s tail,

or hind claw

hacking a basset hound’s floppy ear.

Humans plan social events

requiring white shorts.

They enjoy Cricket, yachting expeditions,

Wimbledon and every shopping mall

with an artificial waterfall,

to name four.

Throw in a few corpses

attending family reunions

with summer softball games

and you have

quite a mess

on your hands.

I’m telling you,

if you laid all those

white shorts

end to end,

you could encircle

the earth forever!

 

Alan Britt’s recent books are Greatest Hits (2010), Hurricane (2010), Vegetable Love (2009), Vermilion (2006), Infinite Days (2003), Amnesia Tango (1998) and Bodies of Lightning (1995). Britt’s work also appears in the new anthologies, American Poets Against the War, Metropolitan Arts Press, Chicago/Athens/Dublin: 2009 and Vapor transatlántico (Transatlantic Steamer), a bi-lingual anthology of Latin American and North American poets, Hofstra University Press/Fondo de Cultura Económica de Mexico/Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos de Peru, 2008.

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