“Zoo Ghazal,” by Holly Jensen

Apr 20th, 2011 | By | Category: Poetry

In Australia, Huntsman spiders kill in cars. One sees a spider the size of a
child’s hand rush across the dash, one exits the road at freefall. (Clever girl.)

You don’t know the first thing about me or my tree. Bananas grow on huge herbs,
watermelons are vegetables, potato bugs are crustaceans, and the killer whale ain’t.

Take me to the zoo today. I need to carousel a taxidermy bobcat and smear
powdered sugar on my face, and I want to wrestle the biggest shark they’ve got.

Let us pray the cold heart who runs the Darwin Awards gets viciously maimed by
the grief-crazed loved one of someone she snickered at for daring to die inelegantly.

Something smells like shit in here, and I hope it’s not me.
Something smells like me in here, and I hope it’s not shit.

A chain of names, long unchained. Ladybugs are really Lady Bird Beetles,
after the Blessed Virgin Mary, or as she was known to her friends, Mary.

Schoolgirls make vicious and perceptive jokes about everyone, even you,
and play Fuck, Marry, Kill with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

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Holly Jensen’s work has appeared or is upcoming in PANK, wtf pwm, and Miracle Monocle. She lives in the Midwest and has an unhealthy obsession with ghazals, god help her.

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