We glide through the crystal water
in a rented canoe, drifting like Disney
park goers who took the wrong turn
down some overgrown channel to a place
where we can almost forget the plastic elephants
on the Jungle Cruise, faces frozen in human
grimace, staring out at the convergence
of the Amazon, Nile, and Mekong rivers.

These protected waters where fish as long
as my forearm trail the boat, blue bodies
cutting the currents and darting into the tall
reeds that line the soft white bottom, their stalks
grown mad with fertilizer and topsoil runoff,
cut from the neighboring developments.

The zoo cages still visible from the banks,
bars rusted and bending with the weight
of disuse. We imagine Rhesus Monkeys
staring through the branches, though they
refuse to appear. They’ve been disobeying
us since Colonel Tooley brought them here,
not knowing they could swim. This place

is theirs now. The remnants of the reptile farm,
the collapsed palisades of Kings Fort retreat
into the background like some collapsing icon,
ochre spears now point in all directions,
thatch from the roofs of derelict buildings
now packed into nests in dark spaces,
the sunken prop boat now a warm spot
for yellow-belly sliders and a young alligator,
sunning themselves in the gathering noon.