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published September 2009

Krystal Languell is completing her MFA at New Mexico State University where she is an assistant editor for Puerto del Sol and senior editor with Noemi Press. She is the author of a forthcoming chapbook from Tilt Press entitled The Mean Particle. Other work has appeared in Eleven Eleven, DIAGRAM, Santa Clara Review and elsewhere.

Against Anarchy

by

Nibbling at some­thing against its belly,
the ham­ster bends like an otter does
to eat as it floats until the thing rolls away
and she begins to wash her face red.
The sit­u­a­tion torques as I assem­ble clues
about sex and her mate, red-nosed, sniff­ing
her tail, licks his paws of thick paint.
Foreign blood always looks like this.
There is a lump in the pine bed­ding,
mis­car­ried and maroon, vis­cous like
a nugget of General Tso’s chicken too soft
against my red sug­ared teeth so I have to
hold my nap­kin to my mouth and spit.