“Do Not Trust the Beasts”
It’s the zoo, and the
animals
are all too real. They
tear up
the ground and get
whiplash
taking the corners too
fast.
You can smell the zoo
before
you can see the zoo. It
smells
green like decay, not
green
like the floral plush
of rain.
One day, the sun pinned
just
above the river, an
animal
escaped its cage. The
roaring
beast spattered its
feelings
on the roof below its
window,
where the glass sat
like a step
down to the singing
river water.
It didn’t rain bleach
for weeks.
My roommate shut the
blinds,
and I saw sun through
slats
until the rain came and
then
the snow came. It hid
the zoo.
It hid the zoo from sight
but not
from the tangled smells
burnt
into cloth and plaster
and putrid,
too-hot air. The
animals rage
against the white
blanket
pulled so taut against
their cages.
They frolic with the
moon but
miss a breath when they
think
back to the balmy days
before
the cage or remember
the river
two-steps below, whose
collar
is around their necks,
leash tight.
It’s the zoo, and the
animals
are all too real. They
raise a
whisker to the air,
taste breeze
and forget the wilds
and the spatter.
I love the title, and also how you set up the poem with the first line. I can already start to see the story with "it's the zoo." Then you continue this throughout the poem and never loose the story image--like with "you can smell the zoo" and "its the zoo from sight."
ReplyDeleteI really like your description of "the sun pinned just above the river." It makes me think of how staged the zoo is and is a creative way to show the position of the sun. I was a little confused about what was going on in the fourth stanza with the bleach and position of the glass. Overall, I like the complexity in the figures of the animals.
ReplyDeleteChristopher, the music in this poem is so well sustained! and the subject is deeply poignant. The way you sketch the zoo into place, and use the smells to suggest the entrapment. It works on so many levels!
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