From The Crib To The Zoo

'Let's go to the Zoo, ' my sisters would ask I was always quite quiet at best. But -dreamed of keeping a monkey under my vest He'd peek out occasionally unmasked. 'We didn't do family holidays, often Father worked and drank a lot.' A father who smacked and mocked I regularly wished I were an orphan. Mother- she was pregnant out of wedlock. Me, I was then born hidden from view This as much as far as I knew Her heart was cut from a sprig of hemlock. So, my grandmother took over the reins, Leastwise till these two teens wed. Else back then gossip would've been widespread Grandmother told me of her own, pains; How her, own, baby boy fell ill and died How he slept in the attic where I too was laid How both became ill and yet, I survived How pneumonia took him to his grave. It was then that Grandmother tearfully cried. My world until then was oversimplified. Changed forever; some confessions are best Left quietly chambered in your chest, oppressed, Like a little, small monkey under a boy's vest. Caged animals have us all mystified: It's intriguing to see them clearly, distressed Less wild, but somehow even more dignified.