TOTEM & TEATIME

I can no longer shop happily
–Lost in the supermarket, Strummer/Jones

1.
I trick the squirrel. My brother
and his girlfriend did the same.
On my knees, upon the concrete,
(like them besides the meadow),
I show him my left fist,
as if it isn´t empty,
but full of first-class Spanish nuts.
I know: he will not resist. The brown
blitz descends from a scots pine.
I open my fist
and it´s him.
Two spirits.
As I weigh his claws in my hand,
he sees exactly, that I have nothing.
Then he stares straight into my filthy face.
For a very long squirrel-time.

2.
Who am I to mess with
the ruler of this park?
Don´t you know: the white swan
is busy fighting naked children;
the big-headed black swan sells
dull feathers on a seedy TV show.
All the others do not count. Now:
Do you know who I am?

3.
That night,
naked in front of my mirror,
I wrote: “You shall not
eat a squirrel” on my chest
and loved the living
colour of each letter.

–Michele Lamberti