I am sending you a postcard from the jungle.
Shame, I thought, they haven’t invented

the audible ones, so you could eavesdrop
the inconsolable shrill of peacocks,

baboons chatting on the vines, the rain
spattering the highest leaves overhead,

rarely touching the ground. Or hear my voice
in the background, spilling your name

over the canyon’s edge. That is why I cache
those ‘Afternoon Tapes’ (find them among

crumpled papier mache). Get all the sounds,

but none of the heat, sweat, or the mosquitoes

each the size of a Buick. Take them, my love,
to the zoo, say in front of a panther’s cage.

Play them. Observe his pace, unsteady eyeballs,
watch closer as he grows impatient,

for you’d be looking at me, trampling
my own footsteps, at the canyon’s edge.