TRYING TO SORT OUT MY ETHICS
Now that there are two mirrors in the bathroom, I can see
what an animal I am. I brush my teeth, watching, fascinated
like a naturalist, taking notes, drawing sketches of the cranium,
detailing the behaviors. I haven’t had this chance before.
I feel like Darwin, wandering through my own Galapagos, lost
in the vast Pacific sloshing around my bathtub. But I can’t stay here
on these volcanic mountains forever, studying in isolation.
What kind of a scientist would I be if I only took into account one version
of an animal, one small world? It’s been years since I’ve visited the city zoo,
but today, I’m going to reintroduce myself to the Bactrian camels
with their two humps and their lips swollen like a prize fighter’s.
I’ll watch one flop down on his side, sick of Magi, sick to death of wisdom.
He will let his upper lip fall over his nose, an absurd smile
will spread over his face. You can tell he knows how to play
for the camera. Then I’ll go spend the afternoon with the farm animals,
I’ll pet the alpacas and feed them corn. I’ll stay ten minutes
with the chickens in their coop, standing among them like a rooster
without a comb, repeating my slogans, trying to sort out my ethics.
This is what life is like in a cage, this is what the Wobblies meant—
an insult to one is an insult to all. I will have to go next to the mule
who lives there, I have to say hello, and pet his ear, and rub his nose,
worn smooth like the toe of a saint in Peter’s Basilica.
Thank you for your humility and patience, I will tell him, thank you
for your forgiveness. Afterwards, I’ll make faces with the monkeys,
and scratch my armpits absentmindedly, and sigh, just like they do,
and once that’s done, once it’s time to leave, I’ll enter the office,
lay my license on the table, and tap my picture. Here’s one more
for your collection, I will say to the zoo keeper.
If you’re going to keep gibbons you might as well keep me, too.
You might as well take all my clothes and lock me in with the lions.
________________
William Welch
Review by Scott Beal
I like how the appearance of a second mirror in the bathroom catalyzes this whole zoological/metaphysical journey – a cascade from empirical self-observation to Darwinian investigation to communing with the roosters and mules to abandoning any sense of ethical separation from the zoo’s primates and predators.
Review by Nancy Christopherson
This is a deep dive into the comparative meaning of life, viewing a self through a pair of metaphorical mirrors in the bath, such a great vehicle for self-examination and ethical conscience. A strong philosophical meditation on the unique privileges, sensibilities, and responsibilities of being human, versus living in the animal kingdom, and the empathetic questioning of what, when, where, why, and how much should we offer, how much to suffer, for equality? Equal rights and sharing of the planet. Grave questions for humanity, for the individual self, through the lensing of mirror and zoo life. We are not so different, animal and human. Here a Bactrian camel, only itself, flops down in the sand, sick of Magi, sick of wisdom, allowed to be simply camel, not the fabled, mythological servant, for once. Here our speaker notes that an insult to one is an insult to all… and finds the will to say thank you for your humility and patience …, thank you for your forgiveness… to a mule he meets. What makes humans more privileged than animals? Aren’t we each alive together on this planet? This is a fine poem of conscience and understanding, recognition of fellow beings observed for the first time through the mirror of the self, all disguises removed. Bravo, poet.