I visited her at the zoo,
Or she visited me,
One of the two.
We had shared
A cage; she liked the grapes
They rolled
Under the door. Ate them
One at a time, with two fingers.
We used to slam the tire, her and me;
First her then me, her then me.
Then one day,
The cage door was left open
And one of us got out,
Can’t remember who, one of the two.
I walked with my bundle on a stick, looking up,
Eating crackers, sometimes stopping
For soup.
Then I came back and knocked.
She was sitting
In her room.
I heard they were going to put her down, or me,
One of the two;
So I came
To say goodbye, and knocked.
She couldn’t hear. She sat.
Through the thick window, I looked, knocked again.
She sat.
They said come on, just like that,
So I went;
Down the hall, through the door, to the room with the chair.
They said sit,
So I sat.
Photograph by Garry Winogrand, taken at the old Central Park Zoo