Anita Nahal

Mulesing

The other day, in a video, a nightmare came to life. I had to watch. To feel. To think. To see my kind, sink beyond comprehension. A terrified sheep cried. Flayed around its head and legs. Struggled to be free. Like a fish in a net. Or a person being bullied. Being tortured. Isn’t fright the same for the sheep, them, me, and you? Eyes wide open in shock, the sheep continues wriggling. Much smaller than the person abusing it. Bruising it. At their mercy. Deemed of a decent life unworthy. Yelps went not just unheard. Not just unpacified. Not just tactics unchanged. Executioner style, the sheep is hurled against the wall. As if from the end of a dirty nail, a splinter is flicked. As if from the tip of a finger, a fly from a drink is scooped and slinged. No matter, the sheep had eyes staring at and breath blowing towards the person. The sound of hitting the wall…smashing, splitting, breaking, and a shriek. It fell limp and dead. End of life and pain. Now you can profit-mules it. Later, have a feast of the slaughterers. You wear your merino proudly. And I see an exhaust fan at the end of the video letting out the stench of your cruelty, which will reek for centuries like Odense repurposed toilet barrels.

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*On an excavation of 14th century toilets in Odense, archeologists found repurposed toilet barrels still stinking of poop.

Author's note: This poem is inspired by the cruel practice of mulesing, where portions of a sheep’s skin and flesh near the tail area are cut off while the animals are alive. The excruciating pain the sheep go through is unimaginable. Mulesing is legal in some countries where Merino wool sheep are mulesed to ensure the quality of the wool remains uninfected by fly or larvae breeding under the layers of their skin.

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Animals Do Not Plan For War 

And tear apart. Or just tear. Sometimes insects can tear other insects apart. Reflex. Defense. Sometimes, chimpanzees move deep into another’s territory. Kill a male. Or wipe out another group. Like the Gombe.* Sometimes whales or other amphibians, or some mammals like lions, may devour their own young. Its quick. Its sudden. Its bloody. Its instinctive. Sounds gruesome, like ancient mindless acts of torture. Yet no real planning. No copious copies of paperwork. No spreadsheets projecting actions and reactions. No outlining maps with routes. No date fixing. No time matching. No suited-booted standing in impenetrable war rooms. No devious hearts preconceiving the end-of-life fluids gone up in shameless fumes. They don’t have Homo Sapien smugness, or, as some say, smartness. I see clear sands with red handprints walking their way into civilizations. Yours, yours, yours, theirs, or mine. Clashes that lead to no bounteous dashes. No respites. Not even respecting ancient rules of not fighting after sundown.
 
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*Gombe chimpanzee: Documented research by Jane Goodall has revealed that groups of Gombe chimpanzee located in the Kigoma region, Tanzania, indulged in a four-year war for territorial rights between 1974-1978.

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Please Don’t Foster Me 

If you don’t really love me. There I was among countless dogs, lost, homeless, deprived. Disenfranchised, like votes in poor neighborhoods. Too many foster children in the care of the uncaring. Like countless moons waxing, wanning, old or new, roaming aimlessly bumping against each other in a sky bereft of space. Unfeeling, cold profit hoarding. Some friends lay lifeless, some eyeless, all clueless. I couldn’t find my mom or dad. Or siblings. So many litters littered. Connections, remembrances forgotten. I don’t even get my daily morsels. Those few bits and pieces for surviving, hardly thriving. Thrown on dirty floors with disdain while you seek donations for self-gain. Winters, summers, or rains—the outdoors is where I’m deposited, like a piece of mail meant for someone else. Like I was born in the wild to nurture myself. I’m chained sometimes too, and I cry for freedom, some side space, some quiet time for myself. Even my cousins in the wild don’t lay in their own body release.

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Author's note: This poem is inspired by reports of dog foster homes that mistreat their four-legged residents.

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Chains

Chains are sometimes worn in gold and silver. Expensive. Shiny. Crafted and designed. Sparkly status symbols. Singing full-throated on wrists of emperors and queens in monitored temperatures. Or humming on big stages on gilded violins. These don’t rattle in cold winds. Don’t rust in the rain. Mostly don’t leave dried blood stains. Except when human vs. human goes mad for possessions. In a shadowy night can become ailing obsessions. These chains are caressed and loved, and sheltered, and glossed over, and envied. Not like chains around dogs tied outside, alone, neglected, robbing dignity like an untamed belligerent sepsis wound that doesn’t heal, doesn’t kill, just hustles between human sins. Cheap, thick chains that oxidize. Erode. Twisting and twisting around a neck like too many hanging ropes. What is the heart if the heart can’t feel? Just mechanically clunking in the core of a junkyard’s brain like a forgotten great-great grandfather clock aching to tick-tock again. 

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Nameless Stray Dogs 

In some places, nameless strays roam the streets. For food, pats, warmth. On those muddled streets. No kind whispers nor cozy hugs call them close as winds slice their howls; their needs they foreclose like homes with unpaid loans. I see, I see that many named humans come through in heavy boots, and the dogs’ lives, they chew and screw and spit like juice-less long-munched betelnut leaves. The tender eyes, their fear, they don’t see, kicking them in their belly as they poop and pee. Sentients become worse than so-called non-sentients as strays are hunted by the sober and the heartless inebriant. People's elected have bailed, nailed, sailed, failed all as they dance crazy in an everyday revolving ball. Who leads the brawl is your call. I sit in the muddy rain, pull my bleeding heart out. Stare at it with tears now ebbing in a tight drought. Then I try pulling out my dried, sticky, dense tears as they sit on haunches in their gluey, colorless hue. Only, nameless stray dogs come lick my wounds on those befuddled streets. 
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Anita Nahal, Ph.D., CDP, is a two-time Pushcart Prize-nominated Indian American author. She was a finalist for the Tagore literary prize 2023 for her fourth ekphrastic prose poetry collection, Kisses at the espresso bar (Kelsay, 2022). An academic and a writer, Anita has one novel, four poetry collections, one of flash fiction, four for children, and five edited anthologies published. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals in the US, UK, Asia, and Australia and anthologized in many collections, including The Polaris Trilogy, slated to be sent to the moon in the Space X launch.  www.anitanahal.com