Year of the Monkey

Poetry by Sara Krassin

For five dollars, you can have your picture taken with a monkey

on the Strip. I was out of mind, like a tree through which

a monkey swings. At the sight of him I started

saying rubbish and smoking reds.

On the wings of a 787 the monkey flew across the pond.

It was afternoon all morning and the monkey drank tea

while I slept. O you, of Yankee blood,

why do you grovel at my feet?

Do you not see my eyes are to the trees?

Your feet will blister trying to keep up with the monkey.

I’ve known noble accents

and moved to the music of the meter,

but I know too the howling of the monkey.

And how it halts.

If a monkey gives you his business card, do not invest.

Light another red and lace the air with the scent of

him, exhaling to the out of oncoming darkness.

A picture of a monkey lives inside my MacBook Pro,

the implication is: A man and a woman are nothing,

a monkey and a woman are less.

BIO: Sara Krassin lives, writes, and fights for human rights in Minnesota. Her poems have appeared in Heimat Review, Doubleback Review, Anodyne Magazine, Third Point Press, and others. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing at Hamline University and her BA in English at Bethany Lutheran College. @mskrassin