The magpie hops along Mother’s belly,
slender black legs stark against the gorilla’s pale skin.
The magpie flits to the grass,
pecks up a shard of
one of the piglet’s
delicate rib bones,
soars up to the treetop.
Its mate examines the bone
before accepting it,
retreating into the greenery.
The magpie with the curled leg
is soon on the ground again,
picking out another bone,
flying it back up.
It is after dawn,
and Orphan is crouching nearby.
This morning the not-gorilla child has no eyes
for Breath or Mother or the magpies.
Only for Snub.
Orphan gives Snub a long look,
then soundlessly heads out of the clearing.
Snub doesn’t want to leave Breath and Mother behind,
but she cannot refuse Orphan’s urgent expression.
As Snub follows Orphan,
one last look back tells her that Mother
isn’t even aware that they’ve left.
She is serenely feeling her way through the grasses,
taking nibbling samples before deciding
whether to commit to eating the whole thing.
Breath lies on his back with his eyes closed,
content to be with Mother.
Orphan goes fast, and Snub is glad.
She does not want to leave Mother and Breath
alone for long.
When they reach the tinkly-crunchy scree
near the crater’s rim,
Orphan drops to all fours and begins to slink.
As she picks her way over the sharp rocks,
Snub hears a chaos of sounds from below,
speeds up to see what it is.
Orphan tugs at Snub’s hair,
points down the slope
toward Breath and Mother.
Snub bats her hand away.
What is Orphan so worried about?
Orphan yanks roughly on Snub’s hair.
Snub bats her away harder,
sending Orphan sprawling into the scree,
bits of sharp glossy stone
cascading into the meadow and forest
at the far side.
Snub is fascinated by the rockslide,
watches the glittering black flecks
tumble into the forest line.
That’s when she sees it.
The trees are moving.
Gorillas are racing up the crater slope,
toward Snub and Orphan’s hiding spot.
At the front are two silverbacks.
One is large and muscular.
The other is not silver-powerful but silver-old.
He moves with stiff, pained movements,
sometimes splaying into the rocks,
only picking himself up with effort.
They’re followed by three more gorillas.
All rush up the slope,
looking back over their shoulders as they go.
They are fleeing something.
More figures appear behind them,
almost like gorillas
but on two feet,
animal skins tied around their bodies.
They brandish rocks and bones.
They gibber and holler.
More and more arrive,
silhouetted by the misty sun.
They move slowly as they trail the gorillas.
The not-gorillas are hunting gorillas again.
The not-gorillas have come to Snub’s home.
The not-gorillas are invading Snub’s home.
From back within the jungle,
Breath makes a sound of
wragh.
The small sound soon disappears.
Snub cries her own
wragh
and races toward Breath and Mother.
Orphan is right beside her, making the furious
noises of a gorilla
and sometimes
the furious noises
of a not-gorilla.
Once they’re within the hush of the canopy,
where there has been such
hoo,
Snub calms some.
Orphan doesn’t slow for a moment.
She scrambles on through the brush,
jabbering as she whips through ferns and vines.
Mother and Breath have heard their noisy approach.
Mother is up on all fours.
Breath catches Orphan’s fear and
pap paps his chest once,
twice.
It is more a soft pop than a proper thud.
He is young yet.
Snub places a hand on Breath’s backside,
where once there was the tuft of an infant.
Breath climbs onto her back.
Snub turns,
steps this way and that,
unable to think of how to keep
Snub and Orphan and Mother and Breath
alive if the not-gorillas charge into their home
with their sharpened rocks.
Orphan grooms Mother ruthlessly,
though she is not looking at Mother
but in the direction of the not-gorillas,
accidentally pulling out a clump of Mother’s hair
even as she makes sounds of
acha.
Mother whines.
Palm trees part with a ferocious crack.
The first of the gorillas careens through,
speeding into the clearing,
intent on the far side.
The older, grayer silverback runs right up
to the huddled mass of Snub and her family,
almost knocking them over before
he sees them and hurls his body to one side,
skidding through muck and debris.
He rears in alarm,
teeth bared in the
mrgh
that is surprise.
He beats his chest,
preparing to charge.
He stops.
Snub disentangles from the
cowering bodies of Orphan and Mother.
She steps to one side,
head bowed submissively
but not so much that she cannot
continue to watch.
If it weren’t for the shape of his nose,
Snub might not have recognized him.
He has changed so much.
Silverback’s face is still broad and sturdy,
but the hair on it is patchy,
leaving stretches of skin bare,
exposing a long scar on the chin.
His lower lip sags on one side,
as if that spot is not part of Silverback,
as if he has decorated himself
with the lip of another gorilla.
His expression is no longer one of
wragh.
It is one of fear.
Silverback copies Snub’s submissive position,
forehead bent toward the muddy ground.
Snub is confused.
Silverback does not act like a silverback anymore.
When she hears Silverback’s voice
and smells his pungent fear-scent,
Mother is up and alert,
facing his general direction,
wagging her face in the air.
Orphan scrambles to her feet.
That’s when Brother arrives.
He enters at a stately pace,
pushing aside the fronds of a fern
before stepping into the clearing.
He’s half again larger than the last time Snub saw him,
his flat back bulked and broad.
Brother’s head, which used to seem too large,
now triangles into the muscles of his shoulders.
Brother sees Snub, and it stills him.<
br />
Brother sees Mother, and it softens him.
Brother sees Orphan, and it enrages him.
He goes rigid, the muscles along his arms and legs cording.
He makes first one step toward Orphan and then another,
now running,
now teeth bared,
now beating his chest.
Orphan screeches, hair flying
as she dashes to the nearest tree.
Snub rushes to Orphan’s aid,
but Brother whirls on her,
swiping her to the ground.
Snub hits heavily,
wind knocked out of her,
vision sparking.
Brother beats on the tree.
Orphan is well up by now,
gripping a branch,
peering down.
Mother makes a shriek of protest,
surprisingly loud from such a rickety creature.
Brother listens.
Silverback listens.
All the gorillas in the clearing still.
Snub sees that Mother’s focus is not on Orphan,
but on the distant crater rim,
invisible through the dense jungle.
Mother’s hearing is better than
any of theirs.
Silverback, too, becomes distracted
by the crashing sounds there,
by the jabbering cries of the not-gorillas.
He begins to ease toward the far side of the clearing
even as his gaze remains focused on
Brother, pounding Orphan’s tree.
More noises come through the jungle,
drawing even Brother’s attention.
The new female gorillas have arrived.
Unlike the silverbacks these three are shy,
pulling up vegetation
as soon as they are in view,
making great shows of eating it
to put the strangers at ease.
To put Snub at ease.
She finds herself making similar movements,
sneaking glances at the strangers
through the sides of her eyes
as leaves fill her view.
It is something Snub has wanted
for such a long time,
new gorillas to be with.
These three are young,
not young like Breath
but young like Snub,
females with soft eyes,
curiosity within their fear.
Part of her wants to groom them,
part of her wants to ignore them entirely
and only
flee,
flee,
flee.
The not-gorillas are making
their jibbering calls,
coming ever nearer.
Old Silverback is the first to bolt.
The sweet-eyed female gorillas stop pretending to eat,
move to follow him,
but then hesitate when they see that Brother is not leaving
the tree where Orphan is hiding.
The young silverback looks
toward the sounds of the not-gorillas,
then makes a
wragh,
directed neither at them nor at Orphan
but at some space in between.
Brother tosses his head haughtily,
races after Silverback,
out of the clearing.
The female gorillas stream after him.
The last one takes
a wistful look
back at Snub
before she disappears.
Snub rushes to Orphan’s tree,
taps her hands on the trunk.
We need to go.
Orphan lowers herself down,
branch by branch,
until again she is with Snub.
Breath is full of vigor without direction,
staring after Silverback and Brother
and the new gorillas,
then whirling,
his attention on the crater ridge and
the sound of the not-gorillas.
It has started to rain.
Here beside Snub is a growing puddle,
there above, raindrops patter the leaves.
The magpie with the curled leg
soars up to its nest,
shaking water from its feathers
before disappearing within.
Mother totters her way along the wet jungle floor,
pausing to click at every step,
making her way toward the sound of Snub’s
acha,
toward Orphan’s labored breathing,
toward Breath’s confused hoots.
She huddles in with her family
as the air turns misty, soaking them all.
There is a noise from within the jungle,
the unmistakable jabber of a not-gorilla.
Then all goes silent.
Maybe the not-gorillas will never approach.
The magpies make their clucks and caws
before then they, too, settle into their nest.
The rain has brought back the possibility of
hoo.
Snub wants to be with the other gorillas,
but Mother could never move fast enough to catch them.
Breath couldn’t either, unless Snub carried him,
and she would soon tire.
Worst of all, Brother might kill Orphan.
To journey with Silverback and Brother,
Snub would have to abandon
her family
and her home.
She will never do that,
so they will all have to stay here,
in the homeland that once was lost.
Because she doesn’t know where to go,
Snub rests.
She is hidden as best she can be
in the hollow of a tree
with her family.
She strokes the reddish curl on Breath’s head,
runs her hands along his shoulders and arms.
Orphan joins Breath on Snub’s lap,
her legs sprawled in the mud
but her head and shoulders
on Snub’s thigh.
Snub comforts her, too,
and then grooms through Mother’s sparse hair.
Somehow in the midst of all this
Mother has fallen asleep.
Her breathing is shallow but regular.
Awake but growing sleepy,
Snub stares up at the magpie nest.
Every once in a while,
one of the birds will step
out onto the branch,
hop to the tip,
see if it is still raining,
then hop back toward shelter.
Distantly, Snub hears the excited call of not-gorillas.
Snub imagines that they have found an animal
and made it into a carcass.
Maybe the not-gorillas will never voyage deep enough
into the jungle to come upon this clearing.
Maybe Snub and her new family will be able to live here forever,
find
hoo
that will last forever.
In this dream
Snub is small,
small like Breath.
Mother is as Snub
once knew her,
healthy and strong.
Together
they wander a land
without sharpened stones,
a land
of quiet green,
of quiet black,
a broad belt of gorilla jungle.
Snub’s body is thrashing before she wakes up.
Her limbs surge and batter,
claw out at the bright intensity
in her neck
that she’s realizing is pain.
She’s pummeling a not-gorilla;
a not-gorilla has ambushed her in the dim light of dawn,
has brought one o
f its sharpened rocks
down on Snub’s throat
to get her to release her blood
and suffer
like the mountain
once suffered.
Heat soaks Snub’s chest
as she punches
the cowering creature,
as she feels its limbs break,
its skull smash.
Only after the not-gorilla has become a corpse
does Snub see it’s a young not-gorilla,
a boy no larger than Orphan.
There is so much blood,
it makes Snub’s fingers slip.
The world is roaring
filled with white
weightless
painless
Snub-less.
She is lighter than being.
She is
hoo,
acha,
amrcha,
she is the love she has for Breath and Orphan and Mother,
mouths wide open and fists flailing the ground.
They are upset,
upset
about what is happening to Snub,
but Snub is the blossoming white of the world
that fills her eyes
lifts her limbs
joins ground with face
only it’s not ground at all
but strangely sky.
Orphan is dragging the not-gorilla carcass
out of the clearing,
two naked feet the last Snub sees.
While she waits for Orphan to return
Snub looks out at shattered trees,
at plants mashed into the mud,
green merging with brown.
Orphan sees Snub’s open eyes.
She exclaims and races over,
water leaking down her face
Orphaned Page 13
