Dinosaur Bees

Raksasa: The Deer-Pig
Karen Greenbaum-Maya

Babirusa, I am only one, but not as rare as you. My relatives are strange but not extinct, and they could visit, even though they don't. But, you too would have nothing to talk about if your hippos and whales visited you. People think I come from New York, and you, babirusa, are a kosher pig. I obsess and I ruminate, but no one counts my stomachs. You are a pig in a Muslim nation, no harm and no use to anyone, still you are hunted and sold.

Little raksasa, little deer-pig, no one fears you either. We both commune in moans and grunts, but you never quite manage to come in on the downbeat. Babirusa, I can jitterbug and waltz, and trot like a fox, but I cannot box like a kangaroo, or swim the Sula Straits with the other babirusas. I am easy to find. I crash into tables. I have never been anyone's trophy, elusive and quiet, forgotten in a New York hotel.

You and I both enjoy mangoes, also mushrooms. I wash bed sheets, you get straw for nests in mating season. We both have long skinny legs, mostly hairless skin. In the right light, our eyes are pale. I too have been lost in New York. A good wallow always sets us right. Before I got the braces, my canines too had flipped, trying like yours to grow up through my snout. No one redirects your slow-breaking wave of bone, not when you watch your tusks approach, not even when they pierce your skull between your eyes, bringing home your truest nature, your secret self.

KAREN GREENBAUM-MAYA is, among other things, a clinical psychologist in California. In another life she was a German Lit major, and lived for Art. She has placed poems and photographs in many publications, most recently Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Right Hand Pointing, Poemeleon, Comstock Review, qarrtsiluni, Waccamaw, and Status Hat Art Zine. She was nominated for the 2010 Pushcart Prize. Her first chapbook, Eggs Satori, was a finalist of note in Pudding House Publications’ 2010 competition, and awaits publication.

Collin Blair Grabarek ::	Speak One Way

Karen Greenbaum-Maya ::	Raksasa: The Deer-Pig

Amanda Ackerman ::	Human Time: Poem Eight, Self-Pity

Kyle Hemmings ::	Miss tHing, I Think I Love You

Tammy Ho Lai-Ming ::	How Can You Understand?

Suzanne Marie Hopcroft ::	If You Can(’t) Take the Heat, Get Out of the Sit-In
	Rocket Man

Peter Schwartz ::	Uncle Shorty

Davy Carren ::	Picture of a Postcard

Misti Rainwater-Lites ::	Primordial Pudding

F.J. Bergmann ::	Instant Affirmative

Matthew Burnside ::	YUL BRYNNER DOESN’T GIVE A MOTHERFUCK
	NO ORGASM WILL EVER MAKE ME FEEL THE WAY MORGAN FREEMAN'S VOICE SOUNDS
	TRAPPED IN GARY BUSEY'S HOUSE, ONE TEXT LEFT

Matt Robinson ::	The Oppressionist

Nick Narbutas ::	Enchanted, I’m Sure

Eleanore Leonne Bennet ::	Two photographs

Alexis Pope ::	Tired, Hungry, Dirty

Meghan Lamb ::	It’s A Party!