"A Prayer to Talk to Animals" by Nickole Brown

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend July 28, 2017   A Prayer to Talk to Animals   Nickole Brown

Lord, I ain't asking to be the Beastmaster gym-ripped in a jungle loincloth or a Doctor Dolittle or even the expensive vet down the street, that stethoscoped redhead, her diamond ring big as a Cracker Jack toy. All I want is for you to help me flip off this lightbox and its scroll of dread, to rip a tiny tear between this world and that, a slit in the veil, Lord, one of those old-fashioned peeping keyholes through which I can press my dumb lips and speak. If you will, Lord, make me the teeth hot in the mouth of a raccoon scraping the junk I scraped from last night's plates, make me the blue eye of that young crow cocked to me—too selfish to even look up from the black of my damn phone. Oh, forgive me, Lord, how human I've become, busy clicking what I like, busy pushing my cuticles back and back to expose all ten pale, useless moons.  Would you let me tell your creatures how sorry I am, let them know exactly what we've done? Am I not an animal too? If so, Lord, make me one again. Give me back my dirty claws and blood-warm horns, braid back those long- frayed endings of every nerve tingling with all I thought I had to do today. Fork my tongue, Lord. There is a sorrow on the air I taste but cannot name. I want to open my mouth and know the exact flavor of what's to come, I want to open my mouth and sound a language that calls all language home.            Copyright © 2017 Nickole Brown. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "'A Prayer to Talk to Animals' is an incantation that opens a forthcoming collection with its eye to animal sentience and behavior, and ultimately, it's my attempt to give voice to what we're bound to lose in the face of climate change and continued ecological devastation. I've been researching for this project for some time—reading every biology text I can but also volunteering at a farm sanctuary and a nature center, trying to get close to animals and observe them. Once finished, this project will result in a kind of a bestiary, I suppose, but it won't consist of the kind of pastorals that always made me (and most of the working class folks I know) feel shut out of nature and the writing about it—these poems speak in a queer, Southern-trash-talking kind of way about nature beautiful, but damaged and dangerous." —Nickole Brown   Nickole Brown is the author of Fanny Says (BOA Editions, 2015). She teaches at the Sewanee School of Letters MFA Program and the Great Smokies Writing Program at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina.   Photo credit: Joli Livaudais Poetry by Brown   Fanny Says (BOA Editions, 2015) "Foreclosing on That Peril" by Julie Carr "Graves We Filled Before the Fire" by Gabrielle Calvocoressi "The Apple Trees at Olema" by Robert Hass Help Support Poem-a-Day   If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a monthly donation or one-time gift to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038