Chitra Ganesh, How to Assemble a Flying Car (detail), 2018, linocut on tan BFK Rives. Courtesy of the artist & Durham Press.
The Weeping and Chirping
Hundreds of monkeys are locked in a room. The leftovers are locked in an old lighthouse. Even so, there are still leftovers; these are put in a trunk and sent abroad.
And still there are leftovers. These are glued under the eaves of houses.
But they keep finding extras under tables and in hallway closets.
It’s discovered that monkeys are leaking from their storage places; sometimes only a monkey’s paw cupping itself along on its fingers and heel, or running upright on its fingers through the fields; a monkey’s head that makes its way on its lips, balancing with its ears; sometimes just a monkey’s tail weaving through the grass, or along the rug…
Bits and pieces drip and squeeze from the storage places…A monkey’s ear flutters like half a moth in the grass; a finger curling and opening moves across the table like an inchworm; an eye rolls along the floor staring at everyone!
—And monkey-hair, everywhere! People wake up with monkey-hair in their mouths, in their hands—monkey-teeth in their food!
Oh how they wish they had never fooled with monkeys!
. . ._ And thus it is with those who fool with monkeys . . .
Russell Edson has books with Harper and Row, Wesleyan, and New Directions. (updated 1974)