#MIDDLEBURY
Shared Plight
Kamilah Aisha Moon
Bound to whims,
bred solely for
circuses of desire.
To hell with savannahs,
towns like Rosewood.
Domestics or domesticated,
one name or surnamed, creatures
the dominant ones can’t live without
would truly flourish
without such devious love,
golden corrals.
Harnessed. Muzzled.
Stocks and bonds. Chains
and whips held by hand.
Ota Benga in a Bronx cage,
Saartjie Baartman on display –
funds sent to her village
didn’t make it okay. Harambe,
Tamir, Cecil, Freddie – names
of the hunted, captives
bleed together. The captors
beasts to all but themselves
and their own.
Two endangered beings in a moat
stare into each other’s eyes.
Slower than light, mercy
must not survive entry
into our atmosphere, never
reaching those who lose
unbridled lives
long before they die
in this world of zoos
and conquerors who treat
earthlings like aliens.
About this poem
“This poem came after watching video of the tragedy at the Cincinnati Zoo involving a 450-pound gorilla and a 3-year-old black boy who had fallen into the moat. The terror and tender recognition between them, the deep ironies and shady ethics caught in those fraught minutes and what the public outrage expressed indicate the paradoxical nature of humanity, long legacies of brutality that continue.” – Kamilah Aisha Moon
About Kamilah Aisha Moon
Kamilah Aisha Moon is the author of “She Has a Name” (Four Way Books, 2013). She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
(c) 2016 Kamilah Aisha Moon. Originally published in Poem-a-Day, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
