~
In the 18th Century
thieves acquired and trained helper monkeys
to snatch the wigs off of passing socialites.
The larger the wig—the more ornate—
the further up the social ladder your rung.
Wondering, too, what you do
once you’ve pilfered a royal’s peruke.
Like Vincenzo Peruggia, circa 1911—
steals the Mona Lisa, sure, but then what?
Or maybe the crime was committed for nobler purposes.
Imagine it: you’re a London orphan, selling apples,
dirt in your fingernails, torn clothes, rarely a bath.
Your only friend is a monkey. He’s as filthy as you.
You hatch a plan, and distract the mayor’s courtier
while the monkey grabs his wig and dashes off.
Later, the hairpiece attached to your skull,
you attend the opera for the first time in your life.
Such beautiful music! Tears roll down your cheeks.
So this is how the wealthy live. You begin to understand.
You begin to compete at a game without end. More
powders, more flowers, more lavender scent.
Yardsticks acquired to out-pomp the neighbors.
Undergarments made from mulberry silk.
But no one will tell you what your former friend might have:
This gaudy, gold-plated lifestyle
breeds in you the disease of excess.
You look like a royal jerk. Or a joke.
Not to mention: when the revolution comes—
when those without, both man and ape—
storm the castle’s gilded gates…
where do you think they’ll fling their feces first?
~
Josh Lefkowitz
Josh Lefkowitz received an Avery Hopwood Award for Poetry at the University of Michigan. His poems and essays have been published in The New York Times, New Poetry from the Midwest 2019, Washington Square Review, Rattle, Painted Bride Quarterly, Electric Literature, and many other places. Additionally, his poems have been read aloud on All Things Considered, and printed on the side of a bus in Nashville, Tennessee.