BUSH BABIES

I.  Responsible Parties

that’s     when    the    ravening   

lamb   crashed in.   unexpected   

as eclipse,  welcome as the ear

thquake,   excited hair  aflame,  

lashes wild and swirling,  eyes 

stabbing madly outward,  whir

lwind incarnate.  tumult trembl

ing temple tiles, echoes compo

unding chaos, our counting tab

les  tumbled over,  shivered  to 

splinters  of  crucifix  kindling,  

crazy   coins   careering  across 

courtyards,   swift,   random  -- 

Caesar’s very sins! air piercing

screams&panic  blood&shatter

ed bone.  eyes adangle,  we sca

ttered, gashes exploding  along

our cheeks and backs,   gushing  

like rivers of red erupting   after  

the  suddenness of a desert rain.

fortunes lost.  lives  akimbo.  sc

arred bereft haphazardly dispatc

hed to desperate morgues, medi

cs whoknowswhere. Responsibl

e parties  must be  prosecuted to 

law’s full extent!

I was only minding my business, duly licensed, meeting the public need. The sun a yolk in overeasy clouds, morning mist just lifting with the day’s exchange, my still-lazy mind already drifting inexorably to the inevitable joyous night with fam. The famously exotic wife practicing her domesticity with loaves and fishes, the two strangely disparate daughters (loversrespectively of books and makeup: the miraculous happenstances of double-helix acrobatics), confidently awaiting the predicted return to our house of ovens and myrhh. Just then, remote divebomber fundamentally insane, the dove started its strafing run.

--Duane Vorhees