I Eat Found Things

Unicorn People

After the witch transformed us,

We lived as pearl white unicorns

Deep in the Tanzanian jungle,

Galloping alongside jaguars,

Impaling monkeys on our horns,

And drinking dew pooled in leaves.

One day we saw a dinosaur,

A brontosaurus grazing in the river.

Then he submerged and was gone.

We avoided the dancing singing natives,

But if one of them glimpsed us,

We stabbed him with our horns,

And drank his blood for nourishment.

We ran through a nebulous jungle dream,

Saw shimmering dark blue shapes,

Hazy mythic things rustling in the trees.

Then one day, the spell wore off.

Fleshy and nearly hairless, we returned

To our jobs in southern California

Where we waited tables at Chili’s.

Soon, the memory of being unicorns

Was washed away like a sandcastle,

And all we had was a skeletal image,

A vague outline of a shape of a dream,

And then there was barely even that.

We served chicken tenders and burgers

To chubby white people wearing ties,

We watched American Idol,

And washed our clothes at the Laundromat.

We stared into the mirror, confused, angry.

And this was all there was,

All there had ever been.