To Help the Monkey Cross the River

which he must

cross, by swimming, for fruits and nuts,

to help him

I sit with my rifle on a platform

high in a tree, same side of the river

as the hungry monkey. How does this assist

him? When he swims for it

I look first upriver: predators move faster with

the current than against it.

If a crocodile is aimed from upriver to eat the monkey

and an anaconda from downriver burns

with the same ambition, I do

the math, algebra, angles, rate-of-monkey,

croc- and snake-speed, and if, if

it looks as though the anaconda or the croc

will reach the monkey

before he attains the river’s far bank,

I raise my rifle and fire

one, two, three, even four times into the river

just behind the monkey

to hurry him up a little.

Shoot the snake, the crocodile?

They’re just doing their jobs,

but the monkey, the monkey

has little hands like a child’s,

and the smart ones, in a cage, can be taught to smile.

Source: The Cradle Place (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004)