NaPM April 21, 2017

[Todd]

Jane


Sometimes you have to hide
to save your life. Instinctive
or instinctual? Isn’t that what
we’ve been talking about?

Yes I hid in the jungle, yes
I knew the names of all the chimps
through lines and generations but
the students and the PhD candidate -
I couldn’t think of theirs.

What would you have done?

We all survived. Ransomed
for half a million dollars, they
returned to Harvard, went home
with stories of mud huts and torture,
not much about chimpanzees.

I left my farm in Africa.

The seaside sounds nice.

Loved this one, mercedes. I conferred with the former East German judges and they agree with me that it is a delight to see you also tie the prompts into what will surely become a well tied together collection of poems. I don't always like questions in poems but this one works so well.