Zoo for Well-Groomed Eaters | Lauren Brazeal

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Lauren Brazeal teaches writing in the Dallas / Forth Worth metroplex but in her past she's been a homeless gutter punk, a resident of the Amazon jungle, a maid, and a custom aquarium designer. Her second chapbook, Exuviae, is forthcoming from Horse Less Press in 2016 and her individual poems have appeared or are forthcoming in DIAGRAM, Smartish Pace, Verse Daily, Barrelhouse Online, and Painted Bride Quarterly among other journals. More about her can be found at http://www.laurenbrazeal.com                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
                        

Lady Praying Mantis

 

See how we can stomach

almost anything.

You call us pious,

 

but ours is not the God of Lambs.

We lord only

over insolent things: aphids, flies

 

and crumbling moths singed

by light—they mistake obliteration for heaven,

a human quality. No, not lambs; though we prey

 

on confusion, the smilers who forget

we're a given—our wide arms offer them

salvation. But you, well-groomed eaters, 

 

who see no difference between lust

and starvation, stay, please,

admire us, never dream us up as flowers.