A horse van on my suburban street,
neighbors crowded around
and sequestered in the two car garage
a menagerie of live animals:
a young camel, soft-eyed llama,
a small donkey and four or five goats,
clean and soft and ready for small hands
but the intended audience–an elderly woman
in a wheelchair, hard to surprise
after all these years, but this gift
she wouldn’t forget.

I tried to introduce myself, say I know
your daughter, who? she said.