Tatou Cult
alix rogé
Lying on its back,
Legs reaching towards the bright blue sky,
Much like a knocked-over chair:
So stiff
So plain
Blended into the landscape.
It was the first time I saw an armadillo.
Well, a dead dillo to be exact.
Except if I count the time, I chased a possum down
Convinced that it was an armadillo.
I mean, they look alike...
...right?
I guess it was right when I was told:
“They’re often dead on the side of the road”
Or hunted down by Matthew McConaughey
Or turned into expensive ugly purses.
April 11th, 8.07 am, and a beaver’s blueberry bake
as big as the Lone Star State in hand
That’s when I saw you, dead dillo
or should I say “dead tatou”
“Tatou? Like a tattoo?”
And a new word was added
to our friend group’s extensive vocabulary list
of écureuil and vache qui pisse.
And weeks later,
a new form of baptism –
Korean BBQ, Blink 182, and too much soju –
led to the birth
of unprecedented specimens
Tatorange,
quesadillo,
croissantatou
were soon inked in black
on our Texas-sun-kissed skins.
And so was born the Cult
of the Tattooed Tatous.
Dear Dead Dillo,
lying on its back,
legs reaching towards the bright blue sky,
It has been a hell of a ride.
Author Bio
Alix Rogé is a French graduate student majoring in American literature at the Catholic University of Lille. She is studying literature and creative writing at the University of Texas at El Paso for the semester. She has always enjoyed writing, but she started writing more seriously two years ago, during a semester abroad at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas, where she discovered the art of writing poetry. She was introduced to writing fiction last semester while studying at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska.
