Your low frequency growl inspires feelings of dread. You want to seize the world by its neck, tear it in half with your tombstone teeth. When you storm down the street, swigging from a bottle of XXX and punching telephone poles to splinters, fleeing hooligans dive down manholes, pull the lids in after. Shivering houses roll up their front walks and slam their own doors. But from her high window Olive leans out to watch you pass. We know her weakness for brutes—has she learned nothing? Don’t do it, Olive! But she does. Wotta man, she sighs, throwing down a coy rose.
Martha McCollough 