An Orphanage of Dreams Read online

  wiggle into his half-sleeping head.

  He wishes he had a mindlid.

  And now another familiar tread.

  No baleful mailman this.

  The lighter, brighter steps of Thelma

  are at the door, and through,

  and across the room to him.

  She looms above.

  His eyes will open to behold.

  O Thelma.

  Has she brought bread?

  Once she lavished

  sex and praise upon him.

  Now she returns

  bearing, he hopes, money.

  Kiffler needs some.

  To sit with coffee,

  pastry, perhaps a book

  on a cafe terrace

  and so stalk the world in spring.

  That a need so small

  should loom so huge

  amazes Kiffler. Amazes also

  that gentle, lovely Thelma

  should labor so for such as he.

  Baffled Kiffler doesn’t get it.

  When, Thelma asks, as she peels

  away two lovely green ones,

  will he face up to his responsibilities.

  He ought to cry out, “Never, never, never, will I,”

  but answers instead, “Tomorrow.”

  (And means it.)

  9. Kiffler Treed

  Bent beneath a long metal ladder,

  there is Kiffler trudging across the lawn,

  an ant bearing a wasp wing.

  The summer trees are full of leaves.

  Kiffler, below, has seen a better world up there,

  a tranquil peace house afloat in the treetops.

  He wants to go live in it.

  Though he does not like ladders

  he scurries up.

  The vast maple waves its leaves gently to him

  as he climbs.

  His ant-heart thumps.

  Now that he is in the branches

  he starts to feel better.

  Looking down, he is feeling high.

  He climbs from limb to limb.

  He is really way up there.

  He perches near the peak.

  Never mind how it sways,

  he is going to make a roost of it.

  But what’s happening now?

  Looks like his arms have gone furry.

  Chest and face too.

  Perplexed, he scratches a hairy ear.

  His hand is huge.

  Poor hopeful Kiff,

  he imagines he’s beginning a new life story.

  He wants to call it From Ant to Ape.

  When he left, the news of the earth was grim.

  High above the demented present

  Kiffler is cutting loose from his species.

  What will he miss?

  Thelma and Molly, his sofa;

  movies, his dog Vachel

  cigarettes; wearing a hat when it’s cold;

  cappuccino on Cafe Zoma’s terrace.

  Kiffler is getting ready to rough it.

  Now Thelma and Molly are standing beneath him in the yard.

  They are quite low and stubby.

  Kiffler is so high he can’t tell if they are pointing or waving.

  From within his greeny nook

  he peers out over the rooftops.

  He has never seen the neighborhood

  from this angle before. He likes it better.

  Meanwhile

  below him on the lawn

  dwarfs are multiplying. They are wearing

  their faces on top of their heads.

  Friends and relations, all the neighbors,

  his brother Bill, his sister Maud.

  That’s too much of many for Kiffler.

  They are moving into a huddle.

  Uh oh. It might be a family council.

  Put a cork in that!

  Kiffler hurls his shoes down,

  first one, then the other.

  The dwarfs unbunch and scatter,

  then regroup out of range.

  They are hatching plans to get him down.

  Kiffler studies his new feet.

  He is up there

  because it looked so nice from below

  and he couldn’t think where else.

  Now he discovers

  that sitting on branches is not comfortable.

  The life of an ape-man

  has turned out to be uncomfortable and boring.

  (There goes another illusion.

  How many more can Kiffler have?

  Zillions, probably.)

  The sirens arrive, trailing red trucks,

  to die away at the curb. At the end

  they give off a deep, very final moan.

  If Kiffler could open his mouth and say that

  everyone would understand.

  Firemen swarm below.

  Big-hatted, short-legged, barrel-chested,

  they are running around with their fireman equipment.

  DWARF ARMY RESCUES ORANGUTAN.

  But why aren’t they setting up any ladders?

  The fire captain is explaining to Thelma:

  When she called, they thought “Kiffler” was a cat.

  They don’t rescue lunatics.

  They have a special team for that.

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  Sam Savage is the best-selling author of Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife, The Cry of the Sloth, Glass, The Way of the Dog, and It Will End with Us. A native of South Carolina, Savage holds a PhD in philosophy from Yale University. He was a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, the PEN/New England Award, and the Society of Midland Authors Award. Savage resides in Madison, Wisconsin.

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