Allison Titus

They are Taking the Animals Out of the Offices

one by one. 

Taking away their badges.

Wiping their heart rates clean 

from the monitors & cutting

all the wires.

& the animals fidget, trying out their legs

& the animals inhale exhale 

testing out their rabbit lungs, 

gather up their riot & tender & resign 

the sick light 

of their desk lamps, 

tearing up their blotters.

They are done with this pitch 

& toil; 

done with this ache of industry begotten luckless,

fluorescent in the trenches --

the burrow & stink of it

the long & the short of it

the supply & demand of it

the patent applied for & pending of it

the blood & the bile & the skin & the milk of it

The animals are leaving 

the offices one by 

one

& they run
& they run
& they run
& they run
&

 
 
--
Allison Titus is the author of the poetry books Sum of Every Lost Ship (CSU) and The True Book of Animal Homes(forthcoming from Saturnalia), and the novel The Arsonist’s Song Has Nothing To Do With Fire (Etruscan). She teaches in the low-res MFA program at New England College.