Nature
(after Russell Edson)

An ape is reading the newspaper. In the chair opposite him his wife is knitting an ape sweater. There is a fire in the place where fires are kept. Above the mantlepiece, a portrait of the apes in ape paint.

I am bringing the ape his slippers. Here, ape, I have brought you your slippers as is our habit, I say as I stand before him.

I wish you would not stand before me, the ape complains, it is not natural for a man to stand.

It is as natural as it is for an ape to play the violin, or swing from a tree, I reply.

I simply will not have this in my house, the ape shouts.

Let the boy stand, his wife implores, putting down her knitting, remember when you were a boy and they would not let you slither on the ground or fly from branch to branch or hatch from a cocoon.

And look what I've become, barks the ape.

I do not answer because I know that I must stay in this house, so that I may lie with her when he is away at his ape work in the ape city.

I am reading the newspaper ...