by George Perreault
The movement's always downward
of course, from chickens, slimy, small,
small-minded too in common parlance:
the adherence to minutia, clinging
to the soles of our shoes.
Whereas horseshit's larger, sidestepped and
less processed, just piled up, baled almost,
into the daily work we do: just as bullshit
is the easy lie, the grease on the gears,
and later, tall clumps in the field.
But bushshit, that's a lie which doesn't
even trouble to pretend, it's: here's your
ration, eat it and die: we didn't know levees
would burst, soldiers bleed into the sand,
darkies float out through the oily dark.
George Perreault teaches at the University of Nevada and has published in numerous journals including Northwest Review, Shendandoah, and Journal of American Culture. His third book, All the Verbs for Knowing, is due out soon from Black Rock Press.