Gorilla Keeper
He is master of the dark shape
with the round gray stomach,
and the tendency to charge.
He is like one of them, with large
knuckles.
When he speaks, there is the peace
of trees and shade.
The calm of working with great
creatures of strength.
Girl with a Munch Face
She is the screamer who I imagine
standing at the open mouth of a bridge,
figure trying to leave the rest of the world
and all she knows behind her, the sign post
of familiarity dimming in the distance
I imagine the smell of family life
and common voices fading quickly
She is the elongated face and I wish I could
offer a rescue, not because she needs it
but because I need to rescue someone; simply
put, it is my sensitivity, the desire to hold up
a leaking world that is probably more
in a position to help me instead.
Full Height
She used to sit in the corner
rocking in her old-style chair,
an antique they brought in so
she could play her domestic role,
pretending to know how to knit
the results were knotted
chunks of twigs and twine
they, in turn, pretended they might
one day attempt to wear
while she cradled herself
back and forth, the family thought,
My, how tiny
but then she began to flail
her arms one day and burst
the chair into splinters
and revealed her true height.
A Study of the Tantrum
of course, now we record
them using the variegated
lenses we carry on our person
but I remember a time
when a being could thrash
and shout and the only
evidence was the casual
eyewitness or security cam
I even recall a time when,
to my ultimate Chagrin, I myself
engaged in a small tantrum
and thankfully there was no one
to hold it up like hieroglyphs
on our digital cave wall.