Camouflage

The baboons piss on the concrete poured just last week,
scratch the smooth walls
 
into soften and crumble, working long into night. They will
not sleep, bellow, beat chest

mate, nor take any food until the etching is done—template
of tangled branch, trunk, and root,

template of template of memory, some stripe of sunrise
caught between branches, a monsoon-puddled

moon, orchids hung high in the tree canopy. They scrape
overhead until concrete passes for sky

in the wet season. Squat, piss, squat, piss again until floor
smells grown, not laid; When the zoo

hunkers down in the afternoon heat, they sit and wait for dusk,
falling light, and the wind rising.