Natural Selection
When Judge Judy says, If you were the trophy
at the end of my race, I’d walk backwards,
it’s the equivalent of a cold-stunned
iguana that loses its grip on a live oak
when the temperature drops 40 degrees
in Miami and lands on a passerby
who’s just taking out her dog or maybe
a cyclist who is grateful after all
for the helmet that saves him from
20 pounds of rapidly accelerating
lizard icicle. Confidence bruises
just like that, the skin of it meeting
some blunt object, a point or two. It doesn’t
mean that you won’t win. But contracts
aside, the judge wants you to know
who she’d prefer to see slammed
onto swales, stiff-legged and comatose,
in some cases never to be revived again
by the future assurance of sun, collected
to be sold as meat on the dark Web,
an invasive species dealt with
by a much higher authority than hers.
Miami-based poet, writer, and food critic Jen Karetnick’s latest book is the CIPA EVVY winner The Burning Where Breath Used to Be. Her work has appeared recently or is forthcoming in APR, Another Chicago Magazine, Crab Creek Review, Notre Dame Review, Ruminate, and elsewhere. See jkaretnick.com.
Header photo by Republica, courtesy Pixabay.
