The Fear of Monkeys - The Best E-Zine on the Web for Politically Conscious WritingThe Black-mantled Tamarin - Issue Nineteen
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The Black-mantled Tamarin: photo from Christian ArtusoThe Black-mantled Tamarin is a species of tamarin from the northwestern Amazon in far western Brazil, southeastern Colombia and northeastern Peru where they mainly eats insects, leaves, and fruit. They are 15–28 cm in length and their tail length is 27–42 cm. Family groups consisting of a male, a female and 1 or 2 young live in a defined territory - the female marks branches on the boundaries of the territory with secretions of her anal glands and urine. The female gives birth to 2 young after a gestation of 140 to 150 days. They are listed as Least Concern due to its adaptability to disturbed habitats, presumed large populations, and occurrence in a number of protected areas. It is not believed to be declining at a rate sufficient to qualify for a threatened category. Although they were captured for export for biomedical research in the 60s and 70s, they are still common.

   


Everyone Says I Should Care

by

A.J. Huffman

Friends, family, neighbors are all calling,
to inform me of the latest headline
tragedy. Their outraged voices, indignantly
chastise me for not echoing their sentimentality.

How can I not care

that a plane was shot down
and 295 people are injured, dead.
that 23 might have been Americans.
that it might have been an antiaircraft missile
that caused the crash.
that the Ukrainians and the Russians are blaming
each other.
that this could cause a major conflict
halfway around that world.
I should be outraged.
that this is important.

But I am too busy

standing, here, on seemingly solid ground,
struggling to live paycheck to paycheck.
trying to juggle the thousand unimportant things
that could cause a major conflict in my house
if I cannot deal with them.
worrying that I am getting sick, and I don't
have proper insurance.
battling unbalanced hormones that scream I am
no longer a woman, that I am too old
to breed.
desperately trying to hang on to my half-assed job
in a failing economy.
just trying to survive.

So, I am the bad guy, the uncaring
bitch, because I don't care.

Fine. Put that on the news.

See if I care.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/malaysia-airlines-plane-disappears
-over-ukraine-feared-shot-down-by-missile/2014/07/17/
0fffe1e6-0dcb-11e4-8341-b8072b1e7348_story.html


A.J. Huffman has published seven solo chapbooks and one joint chapbook through various small presses. Her eighth solo chapbook, Drippings from a Painted Mind, won the 2013 Two Wolves Chapbook Contest. She also has a full-length poetry collection scheduled for release in June 2015, titled, A Few Bullets Short of Home (mgv2>publishing). She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and her poetry, fiction, and haiku have appeared in hundreds of national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, Bone Orchard, EgoPHobia, Kritya, and Offerta Speciale, in which her work appeared in both English and Italian translation. She is also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press.
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