Marjorie Mir

Alexander V at the Kharkiv Zoo

Student of cosmology,
now night watchman at the zoo,
he wanders among his charges’
shiftings, flutterings,
gutteral rumblings,
ancestral dreams.
Breathing the musky pungencies
of droppings, straw and fur,
he contemplates
Ultimate Beginnings,
godless or God-created,
a universe infinitely multiplied,
time before time,
stops to rest on a barrier,
eyes closed, legs stretched before him.
A trunk reaches out
from between its captive’s bars,
nuzzles his ear, reminding,
returning him to the simple truth:
You know no more than I do
how we came to this small place,
whether from star or savannah,
mud or dust or water.
See, the sky is lightening.
Almost feeding time.