9715. PASTORAL NOXIOUSNESS

PASTORAL NOXIOUSNESS

Down in Chinatown, they hang the

roasted ducks by the neck  -  it ain't

pretty, but what the heck. I don't eat

flesh myself, trying not for any dead

matter. Anything that once had life,

that final fatal bleep before they go,

by claw, by hammer, or electric shock,

I can pass on easily. I just hate to dwell

on grief. Once, when my own kid was

ten, in Chinatown once, looking at dead

foodstuffs hanging everywhere, he turned

to me and said, 'gar, (he always called me

that; it was never 'Dad'), the Chinese are

exceedingly gross.' Interesting statement.

-

I'm gonna' go somewhere else, where the

paintings aren't purple and pink. Where

I can maybe make my way past the 

standing crowd, and draw me some

water, down at the creek.