by Chase Twichell

by Chase Twichell
     A kid said you could chew road tar
     if you got it before it cooled，
     black globule with a just-forming skin.
     He said it was better than cigarettes.
     He said he had a taste for it.
     On the same road， a squirrel
     was doing the Watusi to free itself
     from its crushed hindquarters.
     A man on a bicycle stomped on its head，
     then wiped his shoe on the grass.
     It was autumn， the adult word for fall.
     In school we saw a film called Reproduction.
     The little snake-father poked his head
     into the slippery future，
     and a girl with a burned tongue was conceived.