Imagine for a moment that you’re a muskox
and it’s damned cold and even more damned
windy.
You scrape your hoof over a rock
to get at a veneer of moss under
a drift of snow which
incidentally
is blowing around you and your herd
in diagonal-horizontal mini-tornadoes.
A threat appears
out of the snow gusts
and like you have so many times before
and like your ancestors have done for
eons
eons
eons
eons
you form a head-outward ring
around the calves.
Only this time its not
wolf or bear.
A clawless
dull-toothed
stick-bearing beast.
The ear-shattering thunder
shatters your skull.
Imagine for a moment that you’re a muskox
on a pedestal
with styro-snow
in the basement
of a university lab building
by an elevator
tucked in a corner
partially covered by a
black
plastic
tarp.
It’s much warmer here.
But if it were up to you
you’d prefer the tundra.