Poems Niederngasse
Valerie Fox
The Animal I See Every Day

She invested a lot of herself in the seventies.
When she redesigned the couch

she never quite got around to it.
She revisited some problematic episodes

from the fifth grade, and the animal she sees
every day always wants more and more affection.

Plexiglass leg meets hardwood floor
and they remove themselves

to a trendy thirty-something disco.
It's a tall order for any dwelling

but fake fur is better than shivering or shingles.
She has one uniform for resentment

and another one for reading.
While checking the baby's breathing
she wrote the rules
for her new board game.

It's called Cheat.
People can play it by mail.

round I, poem 13 (March 23)

Valerie Fox's new book of poems, The Rorschach Factory, will be published this fall by Strawgate Press. email:  Valerie Fox