Confessional Poem Poem by Michael Robbins

You had a woodchuck and an opium ball.
The one ate through the furniture,
the other sat in its cage depressing me.
Now the woodchuck sheds its skin.
I have a cow behind the Dollar Bin.

You shouldn't drink diarrhea
unless you bring enough for everybody.
Turn it into a teaching moment.
Asian-American Students for Christ
have the room until 2:30.

Rumi says no donkey is a virgin,
no, nor any beast that bites the grass.
Maybe it sounds better in Persian.
An unseen force propels the carts
across the Whole Foods parking lot.

The woodchuck hasn't been born yet
I'd rather keep than you as a pet.
You'll sleep on wood shavings, I'll comb your pelt.
That animal loved you, his captor,
whom he hated. I know just how he felt.