Acacia Wood

A prefabricated giraffe,
Slender neck turned
like a black and yellow barber’s pole,
Strains invisibly against the rigidity
Of his Acacia wood body.

He reaches for the

Fake forget-me-nots,
Glass-blown roses,
And tepid tulips
That droop beneath the display case lights,
Feigning photosynthesis
With spider’s-silk leaves.

And somewhere on the Serengeti

An equally slender neck
Cranes over the canopy
Of an Acacia tree
Marked with aging scars
From axe-blade amputations
Administered by hunched aboriginals
Clothed in faded Nike hand-me-downs.

Here
The regal head
Reaches over the treetop
And plucks whithered leaves
Into smacking black lips
As the last gilded pink
Prison bars
Sink beneath the horizon,
Set into indifference,
And resign themselves
To photographers’ fantasy

—The polite after touch

Of Photoshop
That excuses
The battered jeep
Hurling topsoil and saplings
Across the parched plane,
Cargohold crammed with Acacia wood giraffes
That stamp seasick cadances
Against the sound-proofed floorboards.