Delay On Battery Street
by Laird Barron

    minions of the logging service assembled
    like a battalion of red ants at the
    Battery Street encampment
    saws champing to dismantle
    a thicket of monkey puzzle trees.
    the men set to it
    with cutting tools, ropes and tackle.
    prickly bastards, those monkey puzzlers
    although hardly unusual
    until a young man in flannel
    wandered upon the work site and
    without preamble
    performed a graceful quarter dive into the
    drum chipper.
    stacked up cars honked their horns, wondering.
    not one of them considering the fact
    monkey puzzle trees are indigenous to Chile
    and their sawdust is primarily yellow.






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