Forty years ago in Litowa moonlight
I saw myself a naked ape and laughed...
Fever of unknown origins had held me
four days in its sweaty embrace and loosed

my bowels innumerable times so
I staggered from the hut in search of wide
green leaves and staggered weakly back again –
this night as I returned I saw outline

of my dim shadow in African dust,
recognized the naked fellow alive
at the pleasure of chance as my own self
and began to laugh under the full moon

alone near the border with Mozambique
and how I laughed under that huge moon