Notes on Another Nocturnal Intrusion

Posted on July 6, 2002 in Zoos

Bactrians. Two humps on each. Burnt sienna splotches of mange fall off an old cow. Two other camels wrestle, shoulder to shoulder. Parents lead tired children through an evening that grows into the color of a blueberry smoothie. No one standing on the sidewalk can decide what the wrestlers are trying to accomplish. Even the solid plastic leaves of the oversize guidebook fixed at precisely dead center along the fence doesn’t reveal what they might be doing. I spend a little time here, going up and down the path, my eyes fixed on the combatants and the elderly one.