as in tool

by BEE LB

i’m so sure a few days ago i read that perry mason was a real
person (not based! on a real person, which i learned today)
& when i told my friend, who pronounces noir like new-aur

& is very much into the genre, she immediately said “maybe
you were briefly in the alt universe where perry mason was
a real person” & i was like wow, yeah, that’s exactly

what i was thinking, thanks for confirming! anyway, i was told
to think of an animal & thought of a jackal & then perry mason.
& then i googled a jackal & learned it is not only a metaphor for

mischief but mischief in service of another person which i am

struggling to reconfigure. all i can think of is their heavy coat
& expressive ears & the animals they chase & tear into & eat.
if i try i can imagine exactly what their growl would feel like

in my throat, though i’m not trying hard & i don’t know
that growl is the word for what i want. what i want is
a good poem, but it’s eluding me at the moment. what i want

to know is whether della was a lesbian in the books & why

they cast ham the way they did & if perry has been in anything
else since he played phillip in the americans & why the characters
i feel such a strange connection to always show up in each other’s

shows. but i was talking about jackals. the first thing that comes up
when i google them is are jackals dogs or cats? & then are jackals dogs
or foxes? & then are jackals coyotes? & i have no answer for any of these

but i’m now thinking about the time my partner got mad
because i said coyotes are cooler than wolves & i stand by it,
even in the face of persecution. my use of persecution was

intentional there but i’m not going to get into it, i was talking
about jackals. a jackal is a scavenger, meaning a jackal may as well
be a door. meaning a jackal may as well be an opening leading to

something. a jackal may as well show the way out. the etymology
of jackals means howlers meaning a jackal may as well be a voice.
meaning a jackal may as well be a lung, be air, the space that holds

all of sound.

BEE LB is an array of letters, bound to impulse; a writer creating delicate connections. they have called any number of places home; currently, a single yellow wall in Michigan. they have been published in Revolute Lit, Roanoke Review, and After the Pause, among others. they are a poetry reader for Capsule Stories. their portfolio can be found at twinbrights.carrd.co