a b-poem for Lian Canty’s Alphabet Menagerie
I wanted to bring you a banyan tree
with it’s aerial roots reaching down,
but it was too difficult to dig it
out of the Indian ground.
And I wanted to bring you a barnacle—
it looked like a white stone rose—
but it refused to be removed
from the bottom of the boat.
So I thought perhaps a boomerang
that would always return to you,
or a blue- and red-nosed mandrill
once thought to be a baboon …
but the boogeyman told me he wanted them
and threatened to take my ears,
so I let him have them, the bonsai tree, too,
that I’d grown for forty years.
And it was a barracuda
that devoured the banana split
in an act of underwater thievery.
I’m still upset about it.
As for the wild honey beehive,
I was too scared the bees were vicious,
and the bat was so fragile and delicate,
and the bacon was too delicious.
And the red-crested bird of paradise
looked so beautiful under the tree
so I arrive at your door with nothing more
than the gift of stories and me.