Ancestor Worship by Debby Regan

The last Imperial Chinese parts of
Ourselves reside in the attic
With jade busts

To throw garlands?
.............Show our reverential
Anger

These ancestors whose
Maddening destructiveness
Mocks what PBS would instill.

(I cried about the lost
polar bears who float
away from our fingertips
on iceberg rafts)

some Edwardian sailors keep
a naturalist's case of
extinction but when they retire,

the glass eyes reincarnate and
follow the specks of light
from the ceiling

Is the Irish elk in
heaven? I never saw such antlers

They say on
forty feathers of passenger
pigeons the Woolworth Building stands


Debby Regan, USA