In The American Grain

I let William Carlos Williams loose at the zoo.
He made the animals walk on their variable foot.

He whipped them against the zoo refrigerator
for devouring cold, cold plums.

He paraded penguins in a hot wheelbarrow.
He called rhinos the pure products of Africa.

He put lions in his pen
and wrote roaring poems all day long.

He populated Paterson with apes
and said, “See, no difference at all.”