Animal crackers watch from my windowceil,
the eyes of the hippopotomas bashful in cookie hollowness.

They lounge around a glass of milk, the condensation dry.
I’m complacent by my fire on this peaceful night, the rain crackles in the chimney.

I look away from the book in hand under concentrated light, the novel running and fun.
Food is welcome destraction to life, such pleasure to be fed and to feed.
I decide to transit the short distance across the room
for a bite, bite, bite of the tigers, lions, giraffes, monkeys, turtles, rabbits, bears and do-do birds.

The dark pane of glass towered over the swinish shortbreads,
for jungle animals they are very domestic.

A quivering thought passes my mind, perhaps I should wait to interupt my evening with John Irving,
but I’ll get back to those pages; besides, the milk is getting too warm to drink.
I’ve gotta eat just one bite of the snack that makes me smack smack snack through jungles of animals.

I pop the first cracker, then the second and third and forth and fifth I think the picture is clear.

The animals are at ease with the onslaught, welcoming sweetness to my mouth.
The crackers snack happily and move 10 per minute. Each bite sets the rhythm for one to follow.
There sweet doughie carcasses grip the roof of my mouth—still no reprieve.
Morsels of turtles, sweet fare bears, spunky goes my taste buds eating monkey.

Milk washes the pallete clean until drops drip drop into my post snack smacking gobble down
my knees wobble now. There was no suffering within the whole ordeal, only the easing pangs within my paunch.

Then there is silence. The gorging is over, a few remnant crumbs across the plate.

Box is left somewhere  . . . with a frayed string across the entrance.

Richard Aron gathers thoughts and lives in East Village, New York City. He calls himself an expressionist in word and thought.