Alpaca Angst

The Plath Poetry Project encourages writers to use one of Sylvia Plath’s poems as inspiration. Yesterday, I attended the Wisconsin Alpaca Fiber Fest, so I took my cue from Plath’s “The Bee Meeting.” Angst fits Plath.

You are adorable

on postcards of

Peru’s exotic escape

in the Andes.

Your eyes

round, black-brown

big as bunuelo

mesmerize me

with gentle gaze.

Elegant eyelashes

fringe them like

feather fans through

that perfect picture

and fool me 

into feeling their

flutter on my 

outstretched fingers

soothing and tickling

at the same time.

I want to

wrap myself around

your wooly warmth

and feel each frilly fiber

soft as powder puffs

caress my cares

into oblivion.

Your apparent 

simple smile

soothes my spirit

suggesting I sell

all I own 

in the city 

settle instead on 

a small plain

in your presence.

Feel blessed by 

your tender temperament 

until my time.

 

Placed in pens

at the Fiber Fest

on a windy day

in Wisconsin 

alpaca don’t have half

the postcard appeal.

You smell of must,

stalks of strewn hay,

and animal urine.

My head immediately 

migraines swirls of

hurt to my skull

like my brain has

swollen ten times

usual sane size.

In a dizzy daze

I see you spit

at a small circle

of schoolchildren

trying to touch

you in tenderness.

Your smile is

surly, snickering smirk

of sneering sarcasm.

Your fluffs of fur

encrusted in mysterious

bits of foreign objects

I don’t dare try define.

Through haze, I see

the dirty dust drifts 

and silently settles

waste onto everything.

I cough into

my coat collar.

Hurry to the entrance.

Escape the malicious

evil menagerie.

My heart overcome.

Alpaca angst!

K. Dorholt 

4/29/18 NaPoWriMo 2018