He was my first love.

Why else would I cycle, every Saturday,

to the museum in the park?

It wasn't the working model

of a coal mine; or specimen jars

of seasonal wild flowers;

Or the families of striped snails

and black and white plaster mice

demonstrating the Laws of Mendel.

I headed straight past the jigsaw-

coated giraffe (its head peering over

the balcony) to a case

stuck away in a gloomy corner;

but not so dark I couldn't see

the glossy pouch of his penis and balls.

He was posed against a backdrop of jungle,

one arm grasping a vine,

standing on two legs like a man.

The boys at the dancing class

(I always got the spotty or fat ones)

gripped me with clammy paws.

His hands were like padded gloves  

stitched from smooth black leather.

He could swing me off the floor.

I looked up at his lolling tongue;

at his jaw of ferocious teeth.

I gazed into his yellow eyes:

And he gazed back, as if to say,

if you loved me enough

you could bring me back to life.