The Day the Animals Returned

THE DAY THE ANIMALS RETURNED

Outside of Johnson City, I notice
clusters of deer on the median.
And the snakes...copperheads, rattlesnakes
undulating east, three rows abreast,
all the way to Batesburg.

When I arrived at the highschool,
four or five bears were hunched
on the roofs of early cars. I tripped
over alligators in the stairwell.
Possums hung in clumps along the railing.

Classes were impossible. Students
barely could move for all the foxes.
Fox tracks across the drawing papers,
fox tails drabbling paint.

I taught a lesson in analogous orange,
 burnt siena, Van Dyke brown and scarlet.
Students painted thin white lines
on the colors, like pointed teeth.

Tonight I'm stranded in a cheap motel.
Badgers march on the freeways
and starlings jam the phones.
My room is filled with egrets
 and moles convene in my mattresss.
Tomorrow I'll try to get home
by the back roads
when the skunks return my truck.

Jennifer M. Carrasco