Kentucky Coffee Tree Lake Sturgeon Rugged individuals

number168

KENTUCKY COFFEE TREE

Jeremy Nathan Marks

O say can you see Kentucky Coffee Tree Wikipedia tells me you are an “evolutionary

anachronism”

I like you because you come from the prairies and river valleys once stumped by Johnny Appleseed

Now you ride into my subdivision on Ford-Chevy flatbeds get paid under-the-table wages

I’ve planted you in my yard because I read that your poison pods can be roasted to brew a hot beverage not quite as strong as Columbian coffee but free(!) and with less caffeine

Like moonshine I drink what I find my mortgage is high money is scarce and credit is tight

I’ve also taken to harvesting fungi from the local woodlot I find mushrooms scattered among so many discarded face masks

PPE plants they sprout up in mists hanging over us

Like a divine shroud.

number168

LAKE STURGEON

Jeremy Nathan Marks

At a scrum, biologists from the Michigan Office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were asked about the 6’10 240 lbs Lake Sturgeon they caught in the Detroit River on Cinco de Mayo

CNN carried the event:

Can the sturgeon play power forward for the Pistons? What is its position on abortion? Is it a Democrat or a Republican? Will it seek a vaccination? What is its stance on Facebook’s ban of Trump? Does it support Liz Cheney or Kevin McCarthy?

One biologist said that he had not had a chance to ask the sturgeon any of these questions, he simply tagged the fish then took a selfie lying beside the sturgeon’s incredible length and bulk before letting it go back into the swift flow of the river

I don’t know if the fish is an American or a Canadian the biologist said, she might be a dual citizen

She? someone asked

Yes, the biologist replied

Well, I guess it can play in the WNBA if it wants to.

Postscript: That sturgeon was more than a century old.

number168

RUGGED INDIVIDUALS

Jeremy Nathan Marks

In decades past Wolves were placed on something called a Red List but now Red means socialist and many politicians won’t take advice from biologists

Legislators audit labs and departments because of rumors that scientists teach critical theories which state that democracy doesn’t function without its keystone species

Mammalians

Wolf should have been born a Snail Darter an innocuous minnow that doesn’t scare voters the State has taken down dams for her

Wolf should become a Lake Sturgeon a two hundred forty pound, six foot ten centenarian living on the bottom of the Great Lakes Basin

(What if Wolf learned how to dance? Could she audition for reality television?)

Alas, she looks like ever the disobedient dog Coyote’s twin, that frontier trickster bastard American Hyena

I suppose Wolf could take solace that other great mammals Elephant and Giraffe for instance don’t get to be pelts but become so many stuffed trophies American taxidermies

In recent years the iconic American hunter got a makeover body armor over sweats or yoga pants chauffeured in a climate controlled Land Rover then emptying their semi-autos

Toppling mastodon like so many Baghdad bombs

It’s their wealth and privilege supplying checks and Rhinos Lions and Wolves for politicos and their photo ops

Wolf, never was she given the chance to become a rented mule or a domesticated dog she’s just too wild for those who say they love

Rugged individuals.

Jeremy Nathan Marks lives in Canada. Recent work appears in 365 Tomorrows, New Verse News, Dissident Vice, Ginosko Review, Boog City, The Last Leaves, Bewildering Stories, Jewish Literary Journal, and The Journal of Expressive Writing.