animal cruelty

BY CARA DEES

Together, we     drove them to panic.
   Saliva soaped their fine mouths
their precise chests.   What is the horse except
   a softer autumn    the human except

a luckier set of teeth?   Mother unsung
   & elsewhere    whose was the first hand
that curled your churchgirl hand to a fist?
   When the neighbors licensed in injury

stalked the almond-   tipped & shatterable
   does of our forest what reckless mercy
sent you unarmed    to chase the men out
   your own kind-eyed ponies trussed

& bitted? Here (my half-
   life) now (without) defend the day
you taught me    to whip mares     to force-wean
   foals   They were more

innocent    than we gave them credit for
   (hurt earth, hot-   & hurt-hearted)
Mother undone their kindness was
   they could not    speak against us.

Cara Dees holds an MFA degree from Vanderbilt University. She is the recipient of a 2017 Pushcart Prize nomination, an Academy of American Poets Prize from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a scholarship from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the 2015 Miller Williams Translation Award. She is also a finalist for Indiana Review’s 2016 Poetry Prize. Her recent work appears or is forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, diode poetry journal, The Journal, Southern Humanities Review, Unsplendid, and other publications.