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BRONX ZOO
10. mask of the ape
imagine being locked in room with five people for the rest of your life, i hung my head before the western low land gorilla, before clashing with her eyes, at the edge of the enclosure, she said "there is no nature," and challenged me to tell her otherwise, her family had to urinate in front of us, all I could say was "i'm sorry", into her crazy mask and slight sway, they look at you as if you are an absolute fuckwit, they are unforgiving, sucking on straw, fed up, older ones showing the stress, thirty five gorillas born in the bronx zoo since 1972, trees disappear into the concrete, as a painted on community, with the wrong shaped leaves, next door there is a grid floor for the white cheeked gibbon, trunks that never grow and never die, moss coloured paint, the zoo has its answers for everything, plastic plants, the smell of mildew, and they knew, those staff, those volunteers, that sadistic zoo director animal collector, he knew too |
