The Sex Lives of Animals

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          — after Rune Olsen’s art exhibit

Imagine our surprise at the bonobo, trading sugarcane for sex — his thin erection like a dowsing rod for monkey cunt. How cute: the grinning dolphins, their blowholes. How proud: the he-lions and their epic butt-fucking. (The earth is such a special place! I am not good enough to describe it.) You read that one should squint at art, which encourages connection between the what-is-there and the what-isn’t. And because you always believe what you read, and because I always believe you, we obey our orders. At the threesome of deer, your half-closed eyes reveal a struggle: an erotic karate. To me, they become Duchamp’s Deer Ascending Itself. These sculptures are wire and newspaper, covered with masking tape. Graphite captures their lust like an angiogram. They have glass eyes from Germany, made to look like a human’s. (What do they see? They are so fragile.) On the way home, you tell me you don’t want to be my wife.