I Heard the Word Monkey Three Times

I heard the word monkeys three times between ages 7-11

First, the Indonesian chimpanzee that chewed off a girl’s face

Then, how if you tell a lie with one hand on the Quran you will become a monkey in Hell

And when my taita was scratching my back, she pinched the fine dark hair on my neck and exclaimed

Is this a monkey in my lap?

It happened and didn’t matter

It happens some days and it still doesn’t really matter

It’s what doesn’t happen, what’s the pulp of it all

If a whole room, which happens to be a family, which could be mine, or yours, or any of ours

States it is impossible to have happened, then

Shut the fuck up and marvel at the rarity of consensus; negotiation-free simple as can be 

On the inside there’s no family, so you can choose the colors, contrasts and harmonies

Colors of the colors and harmonies of the syntax—in dreams and nightmares, in theory and…

In theory I am not a monkey and my tongue is not so sharp naturally, but still I have been misplaced, and

 a hairy arm dropped me off underneath a bed; In theory my dad is the only man in the world

What didn’t happen matters most 

Like how a bomb threat and subsequent evacuation

Will alter your day more permanently

Than a bombing

Age five is armed robbery

21 is shoplifting in the company of a piss in pants friend

Haifa to Netanya means first Haifa to Modiin, the amusement park factory settlement

The transfer at Benyamina is where I and the soldiers get off

They are trainees, they wear light khaki no green

Trainees get a safety lock I think on their assault rifle

The space between cars is crowded now because the train is so full and too full for the trainees too, I want us all to fit as I am late, and they have an important appointment to make

Why don’t you Shoot someone then take their seat, goddamnit, we are trying to breathe here

What did happen, is the trainee trained 

Hard, to hunt down evil and KEEP COOL off duty

Trained his eyes on flabby arab woman blocking sliding doors with three suitcases as she’s going on a trip

She’s going on a trip

She seems to be going on a trip

She’s moving houses she’s trading cities she is returning home via train 

What did not happen is, and I cannot emphasize enough, the fullest bite of my life

to tell them let’s go swimming in the window of sea I see from my stair seat!

They did not move from in front of the window

I did not crawl over and lick his boot because that would get him to just

SHooot me!  shoooot me already

I changed when I decided to grow up, I grew up and that happened

What would I have to do to get you to train on me,I didn’t ask, sick with menstruation, I want to be alone for a few more years