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for Sarah
Contents
Title Page
1 I
1 Sun Bear
5 How Do You Like the Underworld
7 My Childhood
8 Poem for England
9 Poem for Engagement
10 Poem for a Persian Singer
11 Poem for Giants
12 Poem for Japan
13 The Moment
1 II
1 Korea
2 Poem for Wine
3 Poem for Plutocrats
4 I Drink Bronze Light
5 Poem for Engagement
6 It Is Tuesday
7 Your Eyes Are the Color of a Lightbulb Floating in the Potomac River
8 Poem for Wisconsin
9 Poem for a Coin
10 Poem to a Cloud above a Statue
11 Poem for Massachusetts
12 To Sergio Franchi
13 Poem for Americans
1 III
1 Poem for Happiness
2 The Heart Is Not a Door
3 Poem for Russia with a White Plastic Wolf
4 Albert Einstein
5 Ode to Fluffy
6 Your Story
7 Poem for Lu Chi
8 Poem for a Vial of Nameless Perfume
9 Poem for Jack Spicer
10 Poem for Bill Cassidy
11 Telegraph Flowers
12 Poem for California
13 American Singer
About the Author
Books by Matthew Zapruder
Acknowledgments
Copyright
Special Thanks
I
Sun Bear
yesterday at the Oakland zoo
I was walking alone for a moment
past the enclosure holding the sun bear
also known as beruang madu
it looked at me without interest
it has powerful jaws and truly loves honey
it sleeps in a high hammock
its claws look made out of wood
and if it dreams at all it is of Malaysia
home of its enemy the clouded leopard
a gorgeous arboreal
hunting and eating machine
whose coat resembles a python
now it is night and the zoo is closed
some animals are sleeping
the nocturnals moving in their cages
getting ready to hunt nothing
I don’t know why but I feel sure
something has woken the sun bear
it is awake in the dark
maybe it is my spirit animal
I am reading about the early snow
that has fallen on the Northeast
all the power shutting down
the weather going insane
the animals cannot help us
they go on moving without love
though we look into their eyes and feel
sure we see it there and maybe
we are right nothing
can replace animal love
not even complicated human love
we sometimes choose to allow
ourselves to be chosen by
despite what everyone knows
the