Perception Ablation
Animal Rights Poetry By Lynne Goldsmith From All-Creatures.org

We take away her navigation,
polarized light, vision impacted
through disorientation, her rubbing
the place of injury, not searching
for shelter, tail flicking
as escape reflex
stress hormone release

at eye removal—

pinching or ligation,
cauterization or blade slitting—
whichever method used
for making shrimp mass produce
within ponds made for crowding
dirtiest of carbon footprint
on razed mangrove forestlands

moved from deep-sea trawling
floors of coral reef and seagrass,
marine mammals, seabirds, fish,
turtles, shark, octopus, crab,
sea snake, starfish, sea horse
caught in nets forming “trash fish”

to die or be turned overboard,
maybe crushed on deck, maybe
later turned to mash as feed

the peoples are slaving, dying for
promises of cash for flow the jobs
to sustain is a lie it’s a crime
they’ll be taken away to maybe
shot execution-style onboard
if trying to free themselves
or in asking for something more

than a ship or a shed no escape from
no wages, bondage stolen benefit
being led by security signing off
on conveyor belt washing out
to sea and not—

shrimp alive the deheadings—

show losses, removals of every kind
signs everywhere dropping off
wastes of our reminding pollution

©Lynne Goldsmith, 2020

Image from Commons.Wikimedia.org