Zoo At Night

Without the families, the balloons, the printed animal T-shirts the walkways grow pensive and narrow into unknown places. Occasional security lights create small pools of certainty. The darkness in-between the glow balloons and smothers, wipes away the memory of laughter and the excited screams of running children. Nocturnal eyes hover over perch and branch, peer from under rocks, watch each other’s lamps, waiting for tell-tale blinks. Big cats stir, smell prey. They see through walls an instinctual stalk and stealthy hunt. If you are alone in that imprisoned jungle you will keep on the far side of the enclosures, try to slip away from the low growls, the panting and paw padding. but then the moon comes out from a cloud, strangely, you seek more of that pacing fear, more of the thickening air draw it deeper into your nose, a snout now muzzling this way and that - you commence to howl.