‘((Human)(Animals))’: A New Poem in English & Arabic

((Human)(Animals))

Here we are on this clouded island,
adrift but safe
in our burrows and dens, yawning
in dawn’s milky light, washing
our bottoms, barking
at our partners, snarling
at the news, venturing out
to hunt in the high street, scent
pheromones in the queue for coffee,
lick our wounds in the quiet of diaries, poems,
suckle babies on buses, feed
on our screens, on stories
of those other furless mammals
(beloved)(feared)(not)(just like us)
caged, cornered, frenzied,
tortured, slaughtered, disembowelled, crushed,
prowling, cowering, howling
in a land birthed and nurtured by ours –

as everywhere on God’s grey Earth,
doves cry out in the dust, beat broken wings,
and, over Gaza, hawks scream,
released from wrists ungloved in the West.

20.10.23