Christine Friedlander

TO THE ANIMAL ACTIVIST WHO “LIBERATED” OUR BACKYARD LAST NIGHT

My father finds your pictures of the rabbits going at it absolutely breathtaking. The dog, relieved, licks himself clean. Meanwhile, a woman who is not my mother whispers my French-ass name with a Polish accent. Reading the braided scars on her neck, she can’t seem to get the sound of kicked stools out of her head. Gówno happens, I should know, but even it should not happen in such a concentrated manner. What can you do about the fences, she asks me, but I can’t answer. Instead, I ask her if she has ever played Tetris before–it’s all the same, really, fitting one body on top of another until the whole pile bursts into smoke. Where she’s from, they don’t differentiate bodies, use metaphor. How like you, to still be here, to be still thinking of the rabbits.

In the event of an emergency, Christine Friedlander can be used as a flotation device. She is an MFA Candidate in Poetry at the University of Minnesota, where she writes poetry, teaches undergraduate English, swims competitively, and serves as Web Editor of dislocate literary journal. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Radioactive Moat, Spork, Gigantic Sequins, Fugue, and elsewhere.