Central Park Zoo

I wandered into the park without

a sense of time or

need for a destination.

I just wandered.

The smell announced the

zoo was near before I saw

the sign. And then they were just

there. An enormous circus of seals

rushing a once-white bucket

that presumably held lunch.

Seals or sea lions?

I don’t actually know the difference and

I’m a little embarrassed about that.

I could look it up, but this feels

more honest and I’m going to

sit here in the not knowing.

A trainer issued commands through

grand gestures and reinforcement

through foul-smelling fish.

This isn’t the seals’ home.

This isn’t the land their bodies recognize.

It’s also probably not the zookeepers’ land.

The land doesn’t know them.

Their dance is foreign.

How would their connection change

if they met on homeland?

How would their shared wisdom manifest?

Nearby, an unhoused man altered by illness,

addiction, or life tucked his cardboard sign

between his legs.

He stood near me outside the zoo’s fence,

watching a show neither of us paid for.

Actually, I watched.

He participated.

He mimicked the trainers’ motions

to his own invisible seal.

Speaking commands with gentle authority,

his posture transformed from beaten down

to newly proud.

And I felt the urge to

mimic his mimicking.

I wanted my spine to feel proud, too.

Seals, zoo workers, an unhoused gentleman,

and I all tried on a knowing that didn’t originate in us

or maybe doesn’t belong in us,

in this place.

But here we are,

joining in mutual influence.

And I think they were sea lions.