WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES, NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN

by Jonel Abellanosa

“Marius the reticulated giraffe died at the Copenhagen Zoo on Sunday . . . The cause of death was a shotgun blast, and after a public autopsy, the animal, who was 11 feet 6 inches, was fed to the zoo’s lions and other big cats.”  -- The New York Times, February 9, 2014

                          Nazi

                          Eugenicists

would

also

never

pause

        to take

      into

account

why a healthy   

peaceful           lovable                     

giraffe              named

Marius             shouldn’t             

be euthanized           then

dismembered   so children

visiting            the zoo

may watch      and see

how                 civilized

hungry             lions

could                   also be

        

Jonel Abellanosa resides in Cebu City, the Philippines.  His poetry is forthcoming in Anglican Theological Review, Mobius Journal of Social Change, Inwood Indiana Press, and has appeared in Windhover, PEN Peace Mindanao anthology, Star*Line, Golden Lantern, Poetry Quarterly, New Verse News, Qarrtsiluni, Anak Sastra: Stories for Southeast Asia, Fox Chase Review, Burning Word, Barefoot Review, Red River Review, Philippines Free Press, Philippine Graphic.  He is working on his first poetry collection, Multiverse.

DEATH OF MARIUS

by Skaidrite Stelzer

Image Source: CNN

In the Copenhagen zoo the children watch
with solemn faces, dressed
in their winter gear, blue hooded,
as Marius the giraffe is shot through his
head with a crushing bolt
and falls dead instantly.
Then the removal of the pelt as
the children's faces,
expressionless,
watch the autopsy and
the meat
appreciated by hungry lions.
The inside of a giraffe has many interlaced
organs. The children learn how they were put
together once.  It is a natural environment. Only
later will they learn the lightness of their own organs,
the human autopsy now vaguely familiar,
an implanted memory.


Skaidrite Stelzer lives, writes, and teaches in Toledo, Ohio.  Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals including Glass, Baltimore Review and Storm Cellar.