My Dinner with Anton

It’s all happening at the zoo,
I do believe it’s true.
Paul Simon/At the Zoo

“Don’t try to get into my head.”
Anton warned me.
I paid him no-mind.
He was smiling at the time.

Anton nodded to me to survey
the people around us.
Waiting for me to personify
them as he can.

An old bear refracted the
October Revolution.
Silent remembrances of Mother Russia
on a bench in Brighton Beach.
Garrulous when prodded.

The bird next to him
whose visage screamed
of too many empty nests,
a pink Flamingo,
basking on the beach
of a happy ocean,
not wanting to think
of past angrier waves.

Fashionista felines flirting freely,
all painted toes and Speedos
on faux boards in this faux Russia.
Romanov Empress affectations
marred by deep guttural accents.

“So, you can see these sights
through the prism of my poet’s eye?”

As Anton pauses, looks past me, and leaves me;

out there somewhere nowhere


©TPuma/MMXIII (for the poet Anton Yakovlev)