(Ahem.)

How cute! we think – how sweet! – benign! –
plumpy stringy flying dancing creatures –
kiddie fun and pastel hues align
to reassure us that whatever features

we make out bespeak a dimply innocence.
Then pimply specks of red appear:
we start to fear the smile is less beneficence
on Big Green Golem than the hungry leer

preceding a rapacious rape and kill –
and who knows what are pecking
cotton candy flesh to make its fluids spill?
We’re shocked! – and quickly checking

what we know of motive to account
for why these peeps we thought were sunny
bear exasperating aspects which amount
to species far more creepy. Funny,

though: nobody on the screen appears to flinch,
as if the flying buggers biting them
do nothing more than cause a harmless pinch.
Perhaps we got it wrong again. (Ahem.)

Then something in the mixture’s
fixtures casts a sinking pall.
Maybe no one in the picture’s
thinking anything at all.



.