Is this a fist I see which approaches my face
with steroid-assisted velocity?
Or is this a fist of the mind, an immaculate conception,
gestating in a beer-soaked brain?

If real, that news report now rings true:
we are indeed evolving into crabs
because the fist is truly crustacean-like
huge as a Caribbean conch shell
with blue enameled calluses;
spikey ridges serving as knuckles.

Having now considered the fist close-up
perhaps it was wrong of me to so freely
and so loudly share my concerns about
your too obvious and too intimate
relations with your mother.
After all, you are simply ensuring
your odd traits will be inherited.

So, good for you, Darwin’s Prophet!

Managing to crawl all by yourself
through the septic foam fringing the shoreline
and learning to adapt in a new environment.
Your flat head and crooked legs
proclaim that you are the pathfinder
in evolution’s wilderness.

And well done, too, Darwin’s Pharmacist!

Opting for an unnatural selection of supplements
to enhance bulk and brawn over brains.
Your scrunched brow crusted with barnacles
and those black pebbles passing as eyes
affirm that in the future only mutants
will be fit to survive.

————

James W. Reynolds lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. His work has previously been published in Boston Literary Magazine, Defenestration, Ariel Chart, Lighten Up Online, Parody, The Broadkill Review, The Loch Raven Review, and Scarlet Leaf Review.