“Look at this most curious specimen!”
the cricket chirps, holding a photograph
of a line of chorus girls in bathing suits
kicking their legs. “I think it’s more than one,”
the centipede points out. “But yes, they’re odd.”
“Wait till you see the markings on this one!”
the bulldog growls, tossing a black-and-white
of a chain gang digging in their prison stripes.
“No kin to us!” the outraged zebra shouts.
“Observe the evil flatness of their snouts.”
Foxes, flies, penguins, ladybugs, lions—
in short, the whole animal kingdom has come
to celebrate the lucky extinction
of Earth’s worst enemy and take a vote
on whether to elect a new top dog.
“Cease from using species-specific terms!”
the snakes protest. Of course, they’re sensitive,
maligned for generations as the cause
of mankind’s fall. Meanwhile, as next of kin,
the chimps keep bringing up the missing link.
After a No! vote, the animals pile up
the memorabilia of the vanished race—
pictures of kings, ice-skaters, terrorists—
then light the pyre. Not a trace remains
of those who poisoned, ravaged, exploited,
and robbed their common home—or almost none.
A love-struck chimp has sneaked a picture out,
torn from the frontispiece of a book of poems,
and hidden inside a banana peel,
of (possibly?) Emily Dickinson.