The Most Important Animal
In the beginning Adam named himself
the most important animal,
in all the world—
and now the earth tears apart
broken by greed,
Fires—
Floods—
Storms—
Wars—
His lust cannot be stopped
It drives us all too early into dark boxes.
A hierarchy established
in the beginning
in boardrooms,
full of men.
So much money in the bank,
they can buy and sell us all.
Someday we will recapture the time before—
Before they named us,
told us our place,
told us who we had to be.
The pendulum swings ever farther,
and the clock keeps ticking.
New animals will be born,
like fast-growing wildflowers
just after the fire
luminescent
tougher than time
ready
to invent a universe—
Elizabeth Mercurio is the author of the chapbooks Doll and Words in a Night Jar. She earned an MFA from The Solstice Low-Residency Program. Her work has appeared in Lily Poetry Review, Ample Remains, The Wild Word, Thimble Magazine, Vox Populi, and elsewhere. She is a Pushcart and best of the net nominated poet and was named a finalist in the Cordella Press Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize and the Two Sylvias Press Wilder Poetry Prize.
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