Paul Durcan

1944 / Dublin

Suburban Life Amongst The Higher Primates

Having endured the screeching for a full ten minutes (At first I thought it was just somebody being murdered Or beaten-up)

I decided to forsake the bed and look out the window:

In broad daylight I saw that

It was my next-door neighbour, the Professor of Archaeology, Down in his asphalt garden screeching up at his son

In a monkey-puzzle tree:

'Desist - I say desist- come down out of that tree

And stop that monkey business' screeched the Professor. The boy complied by swinging down off a branch

And although the father aimed a roundhouse kick at him

The boy escaped into the house weeping 'Mamma, Mamma'. That night, as I rolled in my garden gate from the pub,

I observed, across the hedge from me, at a distance of about five feet The Professor in a monkey-suit and hehind him his wife

In a see-through evening-gown and a fur stole:

'Bon soir, fellow-primates' I greeted them:

But they did not greet me back: they never do.
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