We The Primates

How many primates

From scurriers and scampers

Swingers and clingers

In  mountains and jungles

Cloud forest denizens

Wide-eyed nocturnals

Hangers-on barely

The counts dwindling scarily

The numerable endangered

Even our order

A darkening mystery

We don’t know the half

Close or remote

Or too close for comfort

An uneven family

Whose seats at  the table

We argue the membership

We swarm of bouncers:

So:  mouse-lemurs, lemurs, aye-aye and Lorises

Tarsiers and marmosets. Tamarins, sakis,

Capuchins, ouakis, douroucouli, titis

Squirrel monkeys, howlers, spider monkeys, woolies,

Barbary apes and macaques, mangabeys, baboons, 

Mandrills and geladas, vervets and dianas

Red-bellies, talapoins

De brazzas, allen’s and parades,

Colobus, proboscis, langur, gibbon, hoolock

Siamang, orangutan, chimpanzee, gorilla

Bonobos, humans, no, wait, do we belong here,

Looking round the relatives,

Gods of decision, environmental rulers

Unable to distinguish, let alone control

In charge of the ticketing

Who clambers on the bus

The one-way express with people on the roof

Hanging on the windows, running by the side

Heading for metropolis, concrete canyons, cells in zoos

Labs of fancy DNA staffed by people with the blues ?