Native Fauna

Poem by Melissa Balmain

“Wildlife roams as the planet's human population isolates”
—ABC News

Dolphins near Turkey and turkeys in Pittsburgh
and foxes on Washington’s Mall
may be having a ball—
but their numbers would pall next to what’s in my hall
and beneath all my chairs,
and in pairs on my stairs,
having fuzzy affairs:
herds of dust bunnies, thriving as nature intends.

Monkeys in India, pumas in Chile,
and pelicans swarming Peru
may be awesome to view,
but there’s little they do that my bunnies can’t too—
cling and swing way up high,
curl and stretch, or just lie,
and at times even fly…
yes, a dust bunny’s versatile day never ends.

Nobody visits me in the pandemic,
so why should I bother to clean
till we get a vaccine?
Why not reign as the queen of the dust bunny scene?
And another big win:
just consider what’s in
all these bunnies—hair, skin!
They’re the closest I come now to making new friends. ◊

MELISSA BALMAIN is the Editor of Light, a journal of light verse. Her collection Walking in on People is often mistaken by online shoppers for some kind of porn.

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