Animals by Nicole Farmer


animals
by Nicole Farmer

me 17
he 20

what animal do I remind you of I say
animal he repeats, yes I say

you tell me and I'll tell you, think long and hard
take a day and meet me at the library tomorrow

me the romantic
he the sceptic

my head is filled with all the things he will 
say, could say instead of what I will identify him as

because I already know he is leopard or mountain
lion - feline, lazy, stealthy, almost feminine and 

yet so alarmingly masculine when he pounces
death drop from the tree branch, caught in his jaws

blue eyes eating me alive, my escape a mere dream
so I am imagining his response, surely I am a

swan or a doe
delicate and graceful

next day at the university library stacks he kicks 
my knees out from behind, kisses the back of my neck

so, I say, well
the animal, he teases

you're a shew, of course
a what, a mouse, I say incredulous

look it up he says and when I do
yup, it's a mouse, world's tiniest

fits in a teaspoon, totally ordinary, 
small and insignificant.

we play cat and mouse for three years, but 
I still say he's wrong

Hear Nicole Farmer, and other selected poets, read their poems on The Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast:

Three poets and three poems: Nicole Farmer, Jerome Berglund, and Patricia Cannon Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast

Submit your polished poetry for the opportunity of being published on ViewlessWings.com and being interviewed on The Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast.

Nicole Farmer

Nicole Farmer is a reading tutor living in Asheville, NC. Her poems have been published in The Closed Eye Open, Quillkeepers Press, Capsule Stories, Sheepshead Review, Roadrunner Review, Wild Roof Journal, Bacopa Literary Review, Great Smokies Review, Kakalak Review, 86 Logic, Wingless Dreamer, Inlandia Review, In Parentheses, and others. Nicole has been awarded the First Prize in Prose Poetry from the Bacopa Literary Review and has just finished her first chapbook entitled ‘Wandering Not Lost’. Way back in the 90’s she graduated from The Juilliard School of Drama. You can find her dancing barefoot in her driveway on the full moon at midnight.

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