We call it a mercy,
the clicking of the latch,
the soft fleece bed,
the ceramic bowl
filled with calculated science of proteins and grains.
We pull them from mud and the bramble,
from the cold indifference of the stars,
saying, “Now, you are safe.”
The Smallest Stage
We paint the walls
the color of a calm sea
wonder why the cat stares
out of the window
until her eyes become mirrors
of a world she is no longer allowed to touch.
A predator of shadows now,
pouncing on red dots,
feathers on sticks,
queen of a kingdom
that ends at the weather-stripping of the front door.
We have traded her claws for carpets,
her midnight wanderings
for a scheduled nap.
We call it a better life
she will never know
the hunger of a dry season,
she will never know the electricity of the hunt
under a moon that belongs to no one.
The Tethered Spirit
In the park,
the dog strains against the leather,
a thousand generations of wolf
vibrating in the muscle of his neck.
He smells a story three miles away,
a fox,
a rotting leaf,
the musk of a rival,
but the leash snaps him back to the “heel,”
to the paved path,
to the polite etiquette of the sidewalk.
We have curated his wildness
until it fits inside a plastic bag.
We dress him in wool sweaters when it snows,
forgetting his ancestors were the winter itself.
We love him so much
we have made him a reflection of our own comfort,
a living teddy bear
with a heartbeat that was meant to thrum
to the rhythm of the pack.
The Spectacle of the Mask
We put sequins on the skin of the savanna,
draping the tiger in the heavy velvet of our whims,
call the mastery of a whip a “partnership.”
We teach the king to sit on a painted stool,
trading the vast, golden grass for a spotlight that burns more than it illuminates,
applauding the beast for forgetting how to be a beast.
We marvel at the elephant who dances for a crowd, mistaking his heavy compliance for a shared joy, forgetting that his memory is full of ancient horizons that his feet,
now shackled in glitter,
will never touch again.
This is the pageant of the broken,
where the wild is shrunk into a puppet,
the performance is “love”
because we have finally made the mountain
small enough to fit upon a stage.
The Silent Trade
There is a kindness in the cage,
we tell ourselves.
No hawks here.
No parasites.
No thorns.
Just the steady hum of the air conditioner
the safety of a life that never changes.
We do not see the cost of the quiet.
We do not see the deprivation
in the mind of a bird
that has forgotten the geometry of the wind,
the fins of a fish that swims in a glass box,
forever turning away from a wall it cannot see.
We give them a longer life,
we peel away the purpose.
We grant them security,
we steal the sovereignty of their instincts.
In our desperate need to nurture,
we become the keepers of a beautiful,
well-fed, and unintended Alcatraz.