Men In Fancy Dress
Such clowns and
crowd-pleasers
Posing calmly for
the cameras
Neither shy nor
reticent
To display their
daily lives
Each gesture and
posture
Behaviour and
expression
Perfectly matched
As they sit side
by side
And stare into
each other’s eyes
Sleeping, eating,
playing
In full view,
unafraid
These slow, gentle
creatures
Endearing and
enduring
Such deliberate
actions and attitudes
Oblivious to their
keepers’ attentions
In these parkland
pens
Symbols and
souvenirs of their species
Precious panda
merchandise
Raising vital
funds for breeding research
Daily bamboo diet
and long-term preservation
For sale now in
the tourist shop
But these cannot
be wild creatures
Rescued from their
habitat
With heads and
hands and feet
Large enough to
get into
Their black and
white costumes
The right size and
shape
For men to live
inside
And provide the
daily show
For a thousand photographs
The actors, for
actors they must be,
Practised in their
antics
Always sitting in
the right positions
For maximum
exposure
This cannot be
natural
For them to
co-operate so well
The pandas, for
pandas they cannot be
Must be but men in
fancy dress
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