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An Ode to My Monkey
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 email Michael Z.
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I am lying in bed with a very warm body.
We are alone under the covers, which implies, by all respects, that we are not alone at all.
Hanging overhead, the ceiling fan, it's petals extending in discreet congruent directions, whirls one lazy revolution after another, gyrating in its socket, stressing its attachment joints, suggesting that it could, in one crucial instance, crash down on us.
I wish.
Instead, I am asked what I am thinking.
This is the part where I act like a human being.
This is when I talk about feelings and connection and futures and the names of unborn children dancing in ones imagination like so many candy canes and chocolate waterfalls and gingerbread men.
This is not the time to be thinking about ethanol production in upstate New York, or wave power in the Japanese archipelago, or the defense-adjusted value over average of the NY Football Giants' passing attack.
'What am I thinking' is an altogether different question than 'why are you thinking about that.'
"Nothing," I reply, "What are YOU thinking about?"
"Nothing, too."
"Liar."
"You were a liar first."
Which is true, but this is not the time to get all technical on me. This is the time to lie in silence and wish you were sleeping. Except, the question comes again: "What are you thinking about, NOW?"
I have a second chance to be a decent human being. But who's counting?
I am thinking that I usually sleep with a monkey at night and that right now I miss that little sucker.
I miss its tiny fuzziness. I miss how its arms hook into themselves so that it can hang off my back. I miss its snug little belly.
The monkey will never wonder what I'm thinking about. The monkey will never wonder where we're going with this. The monkey never lingers too long the morning after.
The monkey is good to me. I love that monkey.
The monkey doesn't wonder why I pace around the house. The monkey doesn't interrupt my train of thought with questions about calendars and schedules and gossip.
The monkey just is and I just am and this is good, this monkey and me, this me and the monkey.
And if the monkey laughed at my jokes, and if the monkey wasn't cold from sitting in my car during the day, and if the monkey didn't smell like smoke from last summer's BBQ, but smelled like lotions and shampoo and flowers kept in little plastic bottles--
And if the monkey was ticklish, and if the monkey didn't just stare back at me with beady eyes--
And if the monkey was softer and smoother and gentler--
Then maybe it would be here with me now.
"I'm thinking about flowers," I say.
"What about flowers."
"They smell nice. What are YOU thinking about?"
"Monkeys."
"Why?"
"Because they're silly."
I leave it at that. Now we know what each other is thinking. Now the fan can continue being a fan and blow gentle breezes onto sleepy faces. |
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Reader Comments
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post comment
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Posted December 31, 1969 @ 6:00PM by Nancy |
As with many things the answer is handcuffs and a ball gag.
cheers! |
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