On the brink of
an election that will make a difference.
I do not trust:
a congregation of alligators
a company of badgers
a skulk of fox
a shiver of sharks
a wake of buzzards

a bloat of fat men
a shrewdness of apes
a cackle of hyenas
a bellowing of bullfinch
a passel of pigs
a pack of weasels

a generation of vipers
a plague of rats
a battery of barracudas
a murder of crows
a nest of scorpions.

Let us not be swayed by
a surfeit of skunks
and become
a muddle of guinea pigs
a clat of worms.