Ben Miller
“629. The Nasty Menagerie”
from Caketrain Issue 02

Itchy pecking creatures with few redeeming features have found a filthy haven behind the corrugated hulk of the defunct Boileria on soil strewn with potato skins beet tops pale memories of noodles and other crap the owner cooked before he fell into the pot while reading the book a sister warned him about: Anthony Hecht isn’t just a writer, he’s a dangerous preoccupation! Are these meat-eaters what remains of the mourners or is the crowd commemorating the somethingth anniversary of another desecration? The burning of Carthage. The Saturday Night Massacre. Leda’s violation by the swan. Did that regal bird—like so many other rapists—have difficulty performing in the pinch? Did Nixon’s pen sag as it stabbed at the memo asking the Attorney General to resign? Just what is Power? Being limp and on top? Wearing high heels while pinned below? Are we the only species with a Deep Throat? Or is there one in every herd and flock? Three pus-eyed starlings devour the breast of a fourth brother. A crippled crow sucks yellow marrow from a lollipop hollow. Pigeons bob and dart, an incestuous rainbow—blue-brown white-brown brown-gray beige-gray blue-gray brown-beige white-gray citizens flopping and shitting on wings.