4.8.24

Four Poems by Mark Young

Lotka-Volterra

 

The silent animals converge.

Count the eyes at night. Divide

 

by two. Measure the distance.

A phrase away? Perhaps a paragraph.

 

Predator & prey is a classic

mathematical model. It is a balance.

 

Is there an answer? Is this

a riddle? A rebus of fear? There

 

is a space between predator &

prey, a mathematical construct.

 

Reduce the prey & the predators

diminish also. They die. One

 

family left. The prairie empty.

Is this what they are waiting for?

 

No prey, no predators. The sun

grows hotter. Oceans encroach

 

upon what was once grazing land.

Count the eyes by day. Desolation.

 

 

Retail Identity Poetics

 

Published in a hardcover format,

312 pages, a book on identity poetics,

& how queer theory doesn’t necessarily

have to exclude lesbianism. Retailed

for $110.00. That was over twenty

years ago. Think how big it would

be now, & what it would cost, with

so many more shades of gender to

be cognizant of, in a world adrift,

as an uncertain identity, & nothing

that now suits in the fashion arcades.



Two-Step

 

Each night she

would put him

in an air-

tight jar & they

would dance

 

a little

 

before he went

to bed. They’d

take it in

turns as to who

would lead.

 

 

A line from Marjorie Taylor Greene

 

Unsure if it's the Pope or the Presi-

dent who lives in The White House,

this person then says something

stupid like I'm sorry you're having a

 

hard time. But excessive apologizing

might also be associated with a men-

tal health condition; & there are some

other actions that can be taken, not so

 

partisan in their fearmongering. Send

a get well card with an elephant em-

bossed on the plain white envelope. Add

the message: We don't let criminals serve.