Ross White

Time keeps making
a monkey

out of me.
Fork on the right.

Humility in disguise.
A company

of explorers
discovered

a wolf-child
in the wild.

Efforts to teach
him to speak

were unsuccessful
though they dressed him

in his cage.
Shut me in

like Emily Dickinson
or Raskolnikov--

don't get excited,
I read them

in Classics Illustrated
but all the same

the longing
for enclosure,

to be the big goldfish
in a beta bowl,

chokes me.
Spoon on the left.

Refinement
takes time

so I'm drilling
until mannered,

despite my fight-
or-flights.

Against my better
instincts, I

hid my tail
in this tuxedo,

made nice,
shaking hands

with mayors
until my pocketwatch

stopped.
Then I went ape.

I should be given
no knife.

Posted 03/21/10