To Whom It May Concern

Your soul is a dead chicken lying on a city dump, Inert and limp and sprawling, Amid a rotten chaos of inassortable remnants, Of rain-soaked whisky-cartons and soiled brassieres and worn-out tires and Sunday suits full of defunct moths And maybe a blue box or two Labeled Kotex. Pegasus will shun your proximity, All the golden wyverns will avoid you, Veering to other skies and more savory systems, And hippogriffs will never come to nuzzle you With purple-spotted noses of nacarat and cyanine: Even the ghouls will sniff and pass you by. . . . But rats will come. . . .