by Diane Raptosh
Hohlensten-Stadel, Germany ca. 30,000-28,000 B.C.,
mammoth ivory, 11 5/8" high
Whisker and word sash, undershirt, underworld. Fact: Lambs, if raised by goats, will grow to prefer the fostering species for lifemate. For that matter, some words take in their antonyms, such as oversight and oversight, duck as in down about the head and duck in the nautical sense. Mistakes may have been made. "Maybe we need an unhappy medium, where things are somewhat less than fine yet not so desperate as war," mewls the feline man fielding questions as yet unaired in the midst of a nap, weightless with chicken fat.
Diane Raptosh has two books of poems, Just West of Now (Guernica 1992) and Labor Songs (Guernica 1999), and has published widely in such journals as Pif, Women's Studies Quarterly, and Michigan Quarterly Review. She teaches English and Creative Writing at Albertson College of Idaho.