Shame

by Mandy Haggith

A lynx is looking back at us. 
Hunched, on the stump, 
caged. Its gaze
sears.

Two wolves are watching, 
one with bloody sore, limping an endless circuit, 
one just standing. 
Imprisoned.

How did we not know? 
Bison breeding as cover for a zoo. 
A field of cows and horses
concealing a lynx in a bird cage,
wolves inside a fence. 
How can we unknow?

We cannot. 
We are complicit. 
We paid to see them.
We gave their captors money
to look in from freedom
and be scorched.