The Salamander Enclosure

The naked mole rats huddle together
like sausages in their artificial burrow.
These shuddering onionskin creatures seem
so easily crushed, so vulnerable,
yet their curved teeth can chisel through concrete,
hence the special resin that forms 
their worming tunnels, the thick clear plastic 
that allows us to watch them stumble blindly
through their mazes beneath this molded, painted 
model of the desert. 

Limp sardines splash into the pool, flung from a bucket
by a portly attendant. The penguins, remarkably good
at exactly one thing, bullet through the water,
snatching the silvery fish before they can sink to the bottom.
Liquid transforms these plump, waddling blobs
into graceful angels, bobbing and coursing so quickly it seems
impossible that they don't collide, or knock into the observation glass 
the schoolchildren press their spread palms flat against.

A fruit bat hauls itself across the ceiling,
its claws hooked in the chain link mesh.
It stares with  black glass eyes and bares its teeth,
thrusting a sharp snout into the crotch of a potential mate
before suddenly mounting her from behind.
Both of them hang there, ears pointing toward the ground, 
jiggling wildly for a few moments before he untangles himself 
and once again goes lurching off, claw by claw 
across the cage, choosing for the moment not to drop into flight.

When I'm finished spying on the various trails these animals trace
through the earth, through the water, through the air, 
when I'm done pondering their various forms of locomotion,
I follow the asphalt path that twists between their enclosures
and exit onto the street, to resume my own flickering life,
wondering who is standing outside my cage,
watching this strange beast navigate its way between the flames 
of the civilized world.