--- B .  D I E T R I C H

I have to wonder why I'm not more
                surprised at this, the latest intrusion.
It's not as if I'd been expecting
                relatives to swing by, but going
down to the basement felt like coming
                home, all pounce and prehensile madness.
They must've been there for quite a while,
                hooting it up, brachiating
like long-limbed laurels-hardy, hungry,
                full of dark and Darwin.  Their fingerprints
stucco the nickel plating like whorled dimes,
                and banana peels, funky with silt,
saliva, age, drape from each elbow joint.

                This is why I haven't been able
to take a bath in days, why I've grown
                fragrant, unkempt, wild.  I keep finding
strange leavings in the drain.  Hairballs, steaming
                monkey business.  Everything below - the waste,  
what crap we've amassed in vast domestic
                intestines - has turned to jungle.  Worse,
every time I descend, I can't help but think
                they've multiplied.  Now I know they're not
a serious bother, nothing like finding,
                say, a clutch of classics scholars lurking
lunatic behind the furnace, but lemurs
                (in the suburbs!) this must mean something.

I tried, of course, believing in them
                at first.  Feeding them.  Leaving the garbage
downstairs.  But this just made them mad.
                Attempts at bonding, an utter cluster
fuck.  So I was left, then, with leaving them
                alone...that, or prayer.  Now I no
longer know what goes on down there.  I'm sure
                there's more, there's always more.  But beyond
that, beyond the certainty of a cellar
                settling in to its own unsettling
circus, beyond the fear of small black hands           
                prying their way up into this world,
I only know this:  I have to keep them
                out.