<span style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;border-collapse:collapse">REQUESTING INFORMATION<br><br><div><br>Please tell me your best<br>facts about animals. I’m asking<br>everyone. I’ll begin.<br>
<br>The Tasmanian devils are being wiped<br>out by a frightful epidemic—like the<br>bees but worse. The epidemic<br>is <i>actually called</i> Devil Facial<br>Tumour Disease. It is communicable <br>within the species via bites </div>
<div>or especially vehement sex.<br><br>To sex a sea urchin, you tap it until<br>it emits a thin puddle of egg or sperm.<br>What if this worked on other things!<br>Imagine wondering what a thing is.<br>For the price of a few pats on the back,<br>
the thing releases onto your<br>palm a frank sample, a tiny<br>pool of its own essence, meaning,<br>and being. <br><br>Maybe in another lifetime. Most<br>things are coy in our world. <br>They are couth. <br><br><br><b>Amy McDaniel</b> writes for HTMLgiant.com and helps run the Solar Anus reading series in Atlanta. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in <i>matchbook</i>, <i>Alimentum</i>, <i>Tin House, <span style="font-style:normal"><i>Porchlight </i>and <i>The Agriculture</i><i>Reader</i>. She co-edited <i>From the Second Line</i>, a collection of her students’ personal essays about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Her chapbook, <i>Selected Adult Lessons</i>, is available from Agnes Fox Press.</span></i></div>
</span><br>-- <br>RealPoetik<br><a href="http://www.realpoetik.org" target="_blank">www.realpoetik.org</a><br>