i had to get out of this town

so i went on a roadtrip to pensacola.
8 hours in the backseat of a monte carlo
trying to get twenty minute naps without
a pillow or blankie, but at least
while i was on the road, you were still
indeterminate. when i return
there you are, gone.




















*()_)(

we visited the zoo. a duck with a pale
neon green beak followed me thru the swamp.
cheetah, leopard, cougar in a round cage
waiting for something to give
them a reason to live. say, dinner?
all sorts of primates
watching primates watching them.
i don't really like zoos too much. i think
of myself, kidnapped by aliens , exhibited,
and planning escape. i think of suicide
and the inability to think of suicide
or how strong the wish to die might be
if i were a big cat with no mice to catch
just a fenced area, with barb wire at the top
and a tree with limbs that reach nowhere out.

every enclosure had a path worn around the border.
pacing turning clay into sand.
the immensity of the hunters;
danger, captured and caged.
i always want to let them out. they could
survive on the savannah carved out
for the antelope, zebra and ostrich
way at the back of the expansion where an electric
train carries yuppie kids and grandkids
and their keepers for three bux a pop.

i think of you, pacing, looking for a way out.
the pull of broken dreams, obligations. decide
if you don't call, you don't call. if you don't
answer, you don't answer. i'm on the outside
flexing my muscles for the leap away.