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Squirrel


Poetry by Chris Chambers

A crow descends on
Queen’s Park Circle at rush hour.
He tries to pluck
the stubborn stringy liver from a squirrel.
Previously the squirrel
had direly underestimated the pep of a Honda Civic.
Prior to that there had been enthusiastic dining
all around the lunch fry truck and garbage.
The crow pierces the liver with his beak and tugs,
then starts to play
like someone’s strung up the mop at the jugband jamboree,
swinging, deft, on one leg.
The squirrel is no Prometheus to the crow’s idolatry.
It’s not like that.

*

Chris Chambers is a former literary editor of This Magazine. He’s working on a second collection of poems; his first was Lake Where No One Swims (Pedlar Press).


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