Classic Poem

Between the bars and netting wire of
Changgyong Gardens' Zoo
I peer, in search of an animal
that knows shame.

Keeper, I cry!
Is there no presage of shame
in the monkey's
red hole?

What of the bear's paw,
incessantly licked,
the whiskers of the seal,
the female parrot's beak,
do they betray no harbinger of shame?

I've come to the zoo in search of a
shame
long atrophied
in the people of this city.