Kristy Bowen, Unusual Creatures #1, 2013 (Artist Website)
Paper collage
For my eighteenth birthday, a boar
roasted on a spit, too large to fit
in any freezer, so the uncles hacked
the feet clean off, threw them to the cats.
The calico is pregnant, the gray one
heavy too. I’ve seen the tom around,
the females’ hind quarter gashes,
an iridescent ooze I can’t look away from.
I love a wound. How honest it is.
Don’t you, secretly, too? Isn’t that why
we bloom? For my birthday, a raccoon
gutted on the roadside, head intact,
eyes alive, bright black, entrails
so shining they could divine any future.