Monkey Nap

Disgruntled monkeys, mostly – one gets the best view
of them here, now, carousing in my liminality – that private
dim sphere of the whirling contraption I’m in, dropping
into the lap of an afternoon nap – animate matters-of-fact
brashly chattering back at me like het-up chimps – pleading

their cases and plots, chasing spotlights across a penultimate
stage – the all-but-last page that proclaims the last drop
off the cliff of the promise of “if” turned to trap – too certain
for comfort: just this side of that, monkey bums drink their port
(Humphrey Bogart flicks play on the TV screen over the bar)

in that place just before the last gap beyond sleeping –
too dark to be seen: they scrabble about in pursuit of a sexual
and intellectual sheen: they ache to be primates with far
smarter brains and alluring physiques – they are pains
in the cheeks of my somnolent ass – and I tell them to get

off my grass and they do, which for some absolutely irrelevant
reason allows me to get up and shoo the last vestiges
of my fatigue like a bush-league of lousy ball-players who’d
rather be chatting than batting. Restored to the gainfully
wakeful! The apes are all gone; something’s lit a new dawn.


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