GRENDEL’S MOTHER CONSIDERS THE GIRAFFES
Nobody knows how you do it.
have mewls and croaks and roars.
you have your vast silence
stares and ways scientists cannot uncover.
all that, while they were writing
I shook myself down south
I saw an alphabet in neck.
I am running, said one neck,
The giraffes made n’s when they bent down
Nothing will ever hurt you.
out more things as a family—
more more, together we are more.
could they make L’s. They spelled this shape
The mother the stem, calf the arm.
there at the beginning,
L for loss, slurp slurp, L for loss.
Other beasts
But you,
and eyes big like a baby’s,
After
a book about me,
and stalked a herd.
I am running,
and the other necks said I too.
to their small ones—
And the giraffes could spell
two kissing at the ground for
And only together
when nursing,
The L was for loss,
even before the hole.
It has already begun.
GRENDEL’S MOTHER CONSIDERS THE PINK FAIRY ARMADILLO
Your armor is pathetic—O my sashimi, my sand-snake,
my burrow-bear. Nobody can save you—although
your peril is nuanced. Men only want what is dolphin,
squeaky, hairless, accessible hole, and you are the antithesis,
with your white bristles, lobster claws, dorsal covering.
And yet, you are not altogether safe, for all your caution.
Destined for a life of doom in captivity. What is it
I can say to you, small knight, or are you monster
like me, all hard, all shard, all unknowable? Once,
I let you crawl on the tip of my maw, you small anomaly,
unafraid of me, with my snuffle-fur, my bad breath, the hole
where Grendel used to live. Can you tell me
of your secrets, in underground places? Can you
tell me how it feels when death works better than your armor?
