Until We're Caught

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Until We're Caught


The doubting man finds comfort not 

            in scientific verities or beefy arguments

that tout themselves as firm, but oddly

            in the morning constancy of horny 

squirrels circling the willow tree 

            behind the picket fence. You see, 


he holds a yet obscure but tangible

            conviction that existence must resemble

such a circling, a daily new but known

            pursuit of what is surely lurking on 

the other side just out of reach, 

            a chase where distance waxes each


from each but never will collide.

            Now if it’s joy or truth or just a bite

of squirrel ass he isn’t sure, but as

            to merely the existence of the chase 

he’s found a subconscious certainty 

            that lets him sleep at night, at least


until he wakes to slowly shuffle

            to the toilet bowl where he will

pray his prostate once again

            expels an insufficient dribbling, 

good enough to bring him to 

            his eggs if not to get him through 


the day. And this again is what

            he’s betting on, this yet undiagnosed

but felt persistence asking out

            like squirrel reproductive urges, that  

which sends them round and round

            the willow tree behind the picket fence.

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