children

Tarzan and Bunny.
Two sides of the same coin.
My coin.
My grandfathers.

Tarzan was a wild man.
Bunny was a mild one.

In pictures I’ve seen,
The dash and style of the grand one,
The intense eyes of the shy one.

Tarzan got his name from his children—a fearful yet affectionate term, earned by holding the attention of six daughters, with volume, and primal paternal gestures.

Bunny is not so funny. ‘Twas a childhood polio name, perhaps the cause of much hopping shame. The name remained intact, with his wife’s perpetuation biting to the bitter end.

Tarzan lived large, and wider than beasts from the constrained and neatly maintained forests of convention.

Bunny died a rich man in a moth-eaten cardigan, with a million dollars in an iron box in a freezer in the basement covered by fifteen year old meat.

It seems that my coin has fallen most often on the Bunny head side. But Tarzan always lurks below, on the flip side, waiting to swing down the stairs and cry out in a burning jungle madness.