Brandon Shane

My father used to tell me

the zoo was filled with happy  

animals, and I saw them fed,

they had their own room,  

people devoted to their future,

and everyone came

to see them, their beauty

just swaggering around  

even doing nothing at all,

and I didn't know  

anything with this much

attention could be miserable,

alone counting coins

like stars in the sky,

none of them real, all plastic,

near the bed like a cliff,

sometimes falling into the ocean;  

he'd stumble around,

hearing laughter and anger

in the same breath of air,  

and everyone was gone;

mother, brothers, sisters,

family had packed enough relatives

that they couldn't fit me,

maybe his likeness in the jaw,

but on weekends we'd return

to the animal boxes, the open-air cages,

how wonderful, they'd say,

they're treated so well here,

and I knew the barbarity  

from a young age,

but late nights, listening

to him drink and vomit,  

grabbing the keys like a fire  

extinguisher surrounded by glass,  

driving down dark desert roads,  

sometimes with me in the back

just staring at the sky

as guitars blared like sirens;

I was the only one at his funeral,

a very bad man with little  

redeeming qualities,

but I remember,  

sometimes he smiled,

would hoist my body in the air,

and point at the giraffes.