Two Poems

By Corey Mesler

 

My Responsibility

I want to
take it out for a walk,
my responsibility.
Because it should be simple
it is not.
Leave me in charge.
My hand is full of cloud.
I hold it out to you
and you act as if I have mastered
the labyrinth.
In truth, I only have a hand full
of cloud.
The attenuated end of my
attention paid.
My responsibility.


 

Someone Told me It’s all Happening at the Zoo

The bonobos came out to
greet us. We hadn’t
visited in a while.
They told us the capybaras
were expecting,
the liger started drinking
again, and
the creeping voles,
well, no one knows what’s
going on with the creeping voles.
They haven’t been the same
since the canis lupus
moved in next door.
We thanked them for the
latest, began our
peregrinations with the falcon.
All the birds were praying.
Later, in front
of the larger cats, we were
feeling uneasy.
Something about the way they
wore their hats,
something about the redecoration
they had done
with the bones of latecomers.
That evening,
at home we ran down
all that we had seen, thankful
again to be the top
of the food chain,
and to understand the need for
our cages, which lock on the inside.

Published July 2007