Corey Mesler

MY FINAL WORD ABOUT MONKEYS

My daughter used to be one.
Now she’s a princess
from the planet Crabalocker.
A friend of mine had one for
a pet. I was 9, the same age
the Princess is now.
That monkey grabbed my ankle
once, startling me that
the jungle could encroach on
our civilized suburb.
Another time at the zoo I saw
one throw dung at a mean
visitor. It was only meet and
right and the Princess nodded her
approval, just like a monkey would.

Corey Mesler has published prose and/or poetry in Turnrow, Adirondack Review, American Poetry Journal, Paumanok Review, Yankee Pot Roast, Monday Night, Elimae, H_NGM_N, Center, Poet Lore, Forklift OH, Euphony, Rattle, Jabberwock Review, Dicey Brown, Cordite, Smartish Pace, others. He is the author of two novels from Livingston Press: Talk: a Novel in Dialogue (2002) and We are Billion-Year-Old Carbon (2007). He has published nine chapbooks and his full-length collection of poems, Some Identity Problems, is due out from Foothills Publishing.