A Poem about Opossums

I performed the following piece in The Encyclopedia Show at Kieran's in downtown Minneapolis on Sunday, January 21st. This month's theme was Marsupials.

With this presentation, it feels like my life has come full circle. Back in 5th grade, I gave an oral report on opossums in conjunction with a written report. It included my first attempts at stand-up comedy and acting, grasping and inchoate though they were. Of course, back then I was eager to get good grades with the least effort possible, so I would sugar-coat any subject, even the opossum. I’m sure I depicted it as a noble beast that serves an essential purpose in the Grand Scheme of Things. But now that I’ve lived in the Real World and my eyes have been opened to the ugliness that underlies everything we believe in, I will give my honest, unvarnished appraisal of these larger versions of rats. This judgment will be delivered in the form of a poem.

Possum, O Possum,

What makes you so awesome?
You originated in South America, and entered North America in the Great American Interchange following the connection of the two continents.
Or so Wikipedia would have us believe.
Did you really originate in South America? Or did you originate
in HELL?!
Your unspecialized biology, flexible diet, and reproductive habits make you successful colonizers and survivors in diverse locations and conditions.
This is all true, but it leaves out the most important question:
Why?
Why did God see fit to bring you into this world when everything about you seems to insult His Creation?
You have hands and feet like human hands but with claws
and it’s creepy.
Your face is white like a banshee or a ghost.
Your fur is grey and black and stringy.
And it’s gross.
You have a long rat’s tail,
and that is super-gross.
Truly, you are Nature’s scumbag,
and you couldn’t care less, you who scuttle through the margins of the Night.
You are shunned and shamed, targeted and tricked like the trickster you are.
This is a well-earned fate.
You have no honor. You will play dead to avoid a fight.
Your young cling to you like bubonic bacilli.
Do you drop them in the dark of night to fester in the lymph nodes of America?
Answer me, Hellbeast!
Your face is a portal to another dimension.
Is that where we’re all heading in this imperial twilight?
You hold your secrets closely, Opossum.
You are a wise Sphinx of the Night.
Through back alleys and brothels you carry the fate of America on your back.
You will be the last thing standing once the Empire has fallen.
Then will you be King, King of the Ruins, having made the whole world your natural habitat.
This was supposed to be a poem about opossums.
But instead it became a poem about the imminent fall of the American Empire.
That just seems to creep into everything I write these days.
Sorry about that.
But, again, opossums are creepy.
But they’re also the rebels of the Animal Kingdom.
If you ever see one,
I’d just leave it alone.
It’s probably crawling with disease.