Here’s a Poem I Just Wrote

Monkey Cosmos

Stolen from the Cameroons,

shipped to America,

and branded with the number 65,

the Air Force-owned astrochimp

was pinned down by white hands

and launched into an airless death.

For surviving re-entry, he

was granted a name.

Ham, like the Hamites,

was spared by God.

The Mercury hero spent his final

years tucked into a zoo

nearly within earshot when the KKK

slaughtered some protestors.

He died during the early plague

years of AIDS and they

were going to stuff him,

like the Soviets rendered

their cosmonaut dogs,

a statue made of monkey hide

and armature

that once upon a time

screamed into space,

and back, in terror.

July 22,2020

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