Bananas Are a Bad Example

Of objects as nouns

That can hold up poems—

Twentieth-century jokes,

Sight gags from vaudeville,

Flicks, and musical reviews,

From cartoons and TV shows

To the one-liners printed 

High in The Paris Review.

Captive gorillas

Died from eating them.

(The objects, that is,

Not the nouns, although . . . Koko.)

Banana guns, boners, food,

What a century for fools.