I wanted to write about you and instead remembered this

I wanted to write about you and instead remembered this.Point Defiance Zoo.The background isn't even real -it's wallpapered ferns and shrubs, then a bit of sand and contrasting tufts of green.The enclosure is tiny -maybe eight feet wide and ten deep.A plaque tells me this is a rock wallaby, native to New South Wales, Australia, something that seems so obvious I want to cry.Glass superimposes my image onto the brown-grey marsupial, crouched near the back.He's cowering, cold maybe, despite the summer-bright afternoon outside.In the bush, I've seen wallabies bounding across dirt road and scampering over rocks, that flex of haunch and upward movement.Dear Point Defiance Zoo.I am worried about your rock wallaby in enclosure 5C.Dear Shady Cosgrove.We take the health of our animals seriously and follow national standards re enclosure-spacing.This was almost twenty years ago.I still dream of coming back at night.Dodging security cameras and wire-cutting the fence, following a dim circle of flashlight to his exhibit.I couldn't flee with him, what would I do with a rock wallaby in the Puget Sound of America?Instead, I imagine myself inside the enclosure, forced to kneel because the ceiling is so low, sharing the weight of captivity.