Girls with Antlers

by Richard Peabody


You’re not accustomed to girls with antlers
shining whitely from their brows
but you have to admit it turns you on.

“Where have you been?” they chorus.
“They’re totally in.”

Girls with antlers
carry you from dawn to dusk.

They inflate the bellows.
Massage your neighborhood.

After the ether ponies have raced
around your sarcophagus,

after you’ve drunk enough potcheen
to attain Celtic blood,

after you’ve listened to “Danny Boy”
for the 10,000th time,

only then will girls with antlers
anoint your feet with margarine,

steep you in black tea
to dye your skin with tannins,

tie a raven to your wrist
so you may dance

nimbly across moonlit teacups.

If only you could
touch those deciduous horns
stroke that spongy velvet.