Two by Two

Pacing beside the fields of this somewhere else;

to walk with weights tied about my hips

as a horse or some other animal of burden.

Why was I not an oxen-

birthed to be fat and happy,

dumbly discouraged from an education;

calmed by an electric wire,

buzzed into simulation.

Why was I not a bird-

fitted with air-filled bones,

heavy with feathers, puffed

with sensation;

the called out ones.

Or a candle-

stiffly holding shape under heat,

centered with a cord;

giving way slowly like a cat in water

gripping the raft, gripping the raft-

with every hope bent upon the

unkempt claws dug in.

Why must I be an

Orangutan,

a frumpish pear-shape with dwarfish arms

to drape stupidly over an uneven body,

inept for any use in propulsion?

stagnant in brains,

collared voice on a chain,

a sweet nexus altered.

Yet I find myself in the land of the living.

amongst models of seasons

amid an overwhelmed shelf,

between will-call;

an ink-stain of improperly removed

security devices blotting out

so much of my memory.

But an orangutan. The Orangutan.

The awkward body shuffle of a crowd

pre-destined to see a Holy Light-

looking forward; always forward;

always forward.

Always Forward.

isn’t it something:

never upward. 

Rebekah Jordan