zoo blues

you take a walk
through the zoo,
but are quickly bored.
the monkeys are
shaking limbs
and screaming
in the trees,
snakes are
coiled in
glass boxes
with no
one to strike.
a slender necked
giraffe still gums
the same
high tree.
the lions hardly
move, sitting
back on their
haunches
waiting for a dinner
they didn't choose.
it's over for
these beasts, no
longer doing with
their lives what
they were meant
to do. still young,
some, not
old like me,
like you.