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The Liberty of Caged Animals
deborah wood
Much to the inspector’s dismay, the Queen is no longer respectable. She resides off of the kitchen in a
small outdoor closet hugged by shelving. She is free to come & go, hasn’t been kissed while awake in two
years, there is a cat door painted gray, the lock is unhooked but the squeaking of the hinge is grating,
straining nerves, and she just may be locked out again. The figuration of a possible.
The Queen eats quesadillas with extra spicy pico de gallo and dreams of Vincent Gallo on the television
and dreams of his head in her lap whispering his evangelism, stares down the spiral staircase that burnt
with the building in 1906, watches the costume ball of origami attendees below, flicks her wrist with a
curtsey in the middle of the garden, jasmine teeming over windows & walls. She eats cream cheese and
creates “to do” lists seven months in advance, just in case, pens love letters to herself, cocktails in the
treehouse on the 24th of June,
What more is there to say? A microcosm hidden in every cabinet, a floor plan for life, architectural digest,
this is the object of her concern. The alphabet to decorate the walls, variegated pleasure, sinister demise,
this is the object of her concern. The Queen has a liver, a liver is failing so is hope, the “to do” list has
stopped growing, to no longer be. She kills ants with fingerprints to keep her company when she dies,
fingerprints as stone markers on the window glass, wind from her mouth to disappear from her sight, at
least for now, to vanquish chance by chess & roulette.
(c) 2007 by Deborah Wood