3 Jun: "The Oldest Living Thing in L.A." by Larry Lewis

The Oldest Living Thing in L.A.

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BY LARRY LEVIS

At Wilshire & Santa Monica I saw an opossum 

Trying to cross the street. It was late, the street 

Was brightly lit, the opossum would take 

A few steps forward, then back away from the breath 

Of moving traffic. People coming out of the bars 

Would approach, as if to help it somehow. 

It would lift its black lips & show them 

The reddened gums, the long rows of incisors, 

Teeth that went all the way back beyond 

The flames of Troy & Carthage, beyond sheep 

Grazing rock-strewn hills, fragments of ruins 

In the grass at San Vitale. It would back away 

Delicately & smoothly, stepping carefully 

As it always had. It could mangle someone’s hand 

In twenty seconds. Mangle it for good. It could 

Sever it completely from the wrist in forty. 

There was nothing to be done for it. Someone 

Or other probably called the LAPD, who then 

Called Animal Control, who woke a driver, who 

Then dressed in mailed gloves, the kind of thing 

Small knights once wore into battle, who gathered 

Together his pole with a noose on the end, 

A light steel net to snare it with, someone who hoped 

The thing would have vanished by the time he got there.