Poems of the Week

Gibbon

by J.P. Celia

“World’s most endangered primate population
triples after 17 years of careful conservation.”
Good News Network

The gibbon is my favorite beast.
My favorite monkey, to be sure.
It’s not a monkey, but an ape.
An ape’s a monkey, but mature.

The gibbon doesn’t have a tail.
I guess somebody sawed it off.
It doesn’t have a family name,
Like Hindenburg or Romanov.

It swings, or rather, “brachiates.”
It’s lost its wallet and its keys.
It’s also lost its underwear.
It speaks in fluent gibbonese.