I left the subway at 96th St., on Friday,
and walked home from work
I stopped at Pet Land on 104th and Broadway
to visit the small animals in the back.
At eyelevel and above,
in their glass cages,
I could see hamsters, gerbils, mice.
Below in metal wire cages
were a chinchilla, rabbits, guinea pigs.
Elsewhere were birds, fish, reptiles,
but I loved the small mammals.
Over the years, we've bred more varieties, imported
whole new breeds. From just 'hamster', have come
short-hairs, long-hairs, a dozen colors, Russian and Chinese dwarfs,
The staff takes good care of all of them -
fresh cedar bedding, filled water bottles, pellets of pressed hamster food,
little plastic houses where the black Russian Teddy Bears
sleep in hidden piles.
Lately the staff has taken to putting cardboard tubes in.
The hamsters chew them, but sleep in them, too,
one hamster to a tube.
As I watched a solitary golden dwarf scoot into a tube,
close its eyes, make a scrunched-up face,
I wondered what it would think
when it heard sirens in our city.

All the golden hamsters in America descend from three babies found in the Syrian Desert, not far, from where our enemies live.



Brandywine
3/17/03

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Copyright ©2003 by Han-hua Chang.