(for Tom)

If you say to a great ape: every time
you explain yourself or defend

your life in words,
someone will knock you off
your tree and you will fall

on your bottom in the dirt –

say this and the answer will be: Well, so.
So we will keep writing
ourselves out, keep talking too much, keep

constellating ourselves
in the sounds we learned
before being born.

This is the truth
and why we will keep falling from trees,

gangrening as we go.

Elisabeth Sharp McKetta

Elisabeth Sharp McKetta has been a fairy godmother, a turner of sheets at a B&B, and an owner of a piece of the Berlin Wall. Her chapbook, The Fairy Tales Mammals Tell, is available from Monkey Puzzle Press. Find her writing at: elisabethsharpmcketta.com.

Artwork: Malte Muller, “little ape” 
http://www.malte-mueller.com/

28 Oct This entry was published on October 28, 2013 at 2:44 am and is filed under 3 (October 2013), Archive, Poetry. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.