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for Barbara Gowdy
In Florence, circa 1460, Cosimo de’ Medici enclosed a mixed group of animals in a pen and invited Pope Pius II to attend the spectacle, which was meant to determine which beast was the most ferocious: the lion, the fighting bull, the bloodhound, the gorilla or perhaps the giraffe—an animal then known in Europe as a camelopard.
“Holiness, with these monsters in close quarters
we’re sure to have a brawl.” But the new Caesars
lacked some Roman secret—razors
in the stable straw, or a bonus
bout of starvation, glass goads in the anus
or a goon squad of trainers
who knew how to crack a good whip.
So this static, comic créche—this flop—
a Peaceable Kingdom with cud-chewing bull, ape
absently wanking, lion asleep, bloodhound’s
limbs twitching in some wet dream of a hind’s
stotting fetlocks, and the giraffe, free of wounds,
hunched by the fence, its trembling yellow ass
not enough to coax an assault. Pius
cleared his throat. “The Florence heat, I suppose,”
he yawned. “I’ve seen sportier feats
at a Synod. When’s dinner?” Trailing hoots
and loutcalls, the mob drained out at the exits,
the box seats emptied, the media crews
taxied elsewhere, till finally Cosimo’s
bloodpit was a high-shelved archive of human refuse—
handbills, tickets, peanut shells, all set to motion
by a new wind, as if performing for that pen
of blinking inmates, who remained there . . . still remain
in the blinding empirical lens of the sun
and uranium rainfall, centuries on.
“At eight.
Expect exotic cuts. And excellent wine.”
