#121 Kevin Brophy 'O is for Orangutang'

We read the alphabet, we sing it up,

and when I stands for Iguana I can see that

she would like to eat that lizard

after gutting it and throwing it on a fire

in the bush. She runs a hand across its skin.

She has seen an orangutang, she says,

on television shooting monkeys.

She drifts from knowing everything

to wondering what world she’s come upon

in this room of jungle alphabets, purple trolls

and brittle giants who fall from magic bean stalks

like old baobab nuts.

The orangutang, forest child, it swings eternally

between the letters N and P,

not knowing whether what we speak is true

and never, never to reach its cousin Q,

but always hooting out its O,

its song of deep surprise and woe.