A Small Dispatch from the Zoo
by Francis Raven
Peering over, spotting,
Trying to show someone else
Something else.
Moving through a list of known objects
Until the bird is cornered
In the grid of their mind.
“They always look like they’re praying.”
Wagging tail of a zebra
As it faces a red door.
“The other one got hungry,
see if they’re going to fight.”
Caiman teeth jut from a mouth
Already imprinted with aggression.
An eye blinks fully open
From within leathery spikes.
Motionless terror
Betrays the ease of power,
And yet, every frightening face hides
At least one embarrassing detail.
“Look, he’s trying to eat that.”
Male macaques postulate,
Like so many others,
That they rule the world
And have a handle on fate,
Even control other’s destinies.
Their tails extend far from their asses,
But spare bits of language
Must make them question
Even their sagest theories.
“I bet the lion’s lying down there, doing nothing.”
All animals are silent,
Folded in a way ,
Leaving men to hypothesize voices,
Demeanors, full personalities.
Most interesting are the partially explicated,
Primates, for instance,
Place the taste of questioning language
On one’s tongue.
“Sci-fi model, obviously.”
The undecidable philosophical:
Do zoos make people care more about
These animals, and thus about the environment?
Or do they merely foster exotic attitudes
Towards fauna, which allow us to treat them
Terribly and finally to eat meat?
“What’s that button on its butt?”
Behind the optical illusion of piano wire:
Beeeaters calmly smash the poison out of bees
So their throats won’t swell, but morality never enters the picture.
Kookaburras laugh their way into the ethics of exoticism
By way of a B-movie concerning swinging on vines and a few grass skirts.
“We haven’t seen any animals in 20 minutes.”
The educational sign informs me that Wonga Pigeons
Can fly but prefer to walk, a fact that sheds light on pigeons in general,
Especially the flock on St. Mark’s Square in Venice.
“His tongue goes all the way into that nest.”
The philosophy of sign placement continually reinserts itself:
What if the informational placard appears to point to a different bird?
What if there are too many signs confusing visitors to the point
That they give up trying to learn the names?
What if the information on the signs is aimed at people with doctorates?
What if it is geared towards kindergarteners?
What if the signs merely list the names of donors,
Which threaten to crowd out the names of the birds themselves?