Bradypus variegates, the brown-throated three-toed sloth,
is surely the laziest bastard in the South American jungle.
Once a week, s/he climbs down from the high canopy
into the O horizon, where s/he takes a shite on the detritus.
This is dangerous, as there are jaguars there, and yourselves.
Is the brown-throated three-toed sloth afraid? Is s/he fuck.
You would cootchie-woo coochie-wootchie-coo any sloth.
So would I. But s/he neither wants nor needs our affection;
nor our sympathy when the harpy eagle swoops in for the kill.
Taking it in their stride, all sloths know evil, and this isn’t it.
Would you cootchie-woo coochie-wootchie-coo a layabout?
a human one? Would you fuck. You’d say, ‘Pull yourself up
by your bootstraps, away out and work or start a revolution.’
And you wouldn’t cootchie woochie-coo a beggar neither.
Harpy eagles don’t beg for brown-throated three-toed sloths –
like all good entrepreneurs amongst the Homines sapientes
they go out and take the bastarding bull by the bastarding horns.
You would feed a ploughman’s lunch to a harpy eagle. Admit it.
The Knorr cryodesiccated noodle ship would be touring along
the river creating a market amongst the Amazonian tribespeople
and you’d be cootchie-woo coochie-wootchie-cooing a sloth;
or feeding bits of Red Leicester and pickle to a hungry harpy eagle
from a bumbag slung over a branch. And I, Belphegor, would be
egging you on. ‘Go on love,’ I’d say, ‘that’s fucking ingenious.’
Scott McKendry