From the recording Riversdale

A comic, perceptive poem about projection, recognition and the uneasy boundary between observer and observed. Through mimicry and absurd humour, a childhood encounter becomes a small reversal of perspective, in which the human gaze unexpectedly finds itself looking back.

Lyrics

Orangutang

I’ve been saying it wrong, Orangutang,
as if a tail might make it mine.
We met on a school trip to Dublin Zoo;
the keeper said you refused other males—
a reasonable philosophy.

I’ve been spelling it wrong, bannanas—
a word collapsing under its own weight.
You had a bunch in your mouth,
skins hanging like yellowed teeth,
each one an open parenthesis.

I had the flu; you watched me blow my nose,
that soft white flag of human frailty.
I threw the tissue over the rail
and heckled—

uh uh uh,

a crude translation of my reflection.

Everyone laughed you offstage.

You picked it up, blew your nose,
wiped your bottom,
and threw it back—

your timing, immaculate.