First
Intervention
by Susan Dunn
September 1999
"It's something with his father," he said,
Wanting, kind man that he is,
To offer me something to stare into besides the face of
Medusa,
And to stop that awful gnashing sound.
A dog with a bone, I picked it up and shook it
a little,
Then carried it dutifully to the neocortex for
consideration.
Alas, the neocortex is never
impressed;
It simply recorded in the official minutes
That remarks had been made.
So on we went to the amygdala, the place where
A mother's son and the Truth are
known
But it won't take what it can't touch .
The logic of gruel and the argument of
dumplings .
It's looking for flesh and blood and
heat
And words from strangers are cold;
Tired of the gnawing sound, I crammed it down the mouth of
my
fascist guilt,
In the hopes that it would stop the cannibalization
(Long ago it reached my
backbone);
A pea into the gaping mouth of a
carnivore,
And a Le Sueur very young small early pea at
that.
I hope that he has something more substantial
to feed it.
It's hungry and it isn't for myself that I
fear.
Susan Dunn wrote three
mystery and adventure novels that
didn't sell before her poetry
received national attention.