It was at Berlin Zoo - don’t ask -
where I came face to thick glass
with a gorilla.
                       We stared each other out.
Its eyes were smashed rage
under a pelmet* of wrath.
Its nose, two boxing-gloves.
Its mouth, an unliftable curse; I wished
it were free,
                    down on the equatorial belt,
chilling to Morrissey.
With a day’s more evolution, it could even be President.


*a narrow border of cloth or wood, 
fitted across the top of a door or window to conceal the curtain fittings.