Poetry by David Anson Lee
By David Anson Lee
She heard it once:
not from the men who pushed her
from stall to chute,
nor from the gate’s blunt jaw
closing behind her,
but from a girl
in mud-speckled boots
who paused long enough
to rest a hand
between her eyes.
A single word:
soft as alfalfa dust,
warm as morning breath:
mercy,
spoken like a secret
meant for both of them.
The girl left,
but the word stayed,
glowing under her ribs:
a small sun
too dim to save her,
yet bright enough
to name what her life
had never been given.
Even now,
as metal hums around her
and shadows tighten,
she shapes the word silently,
a borrowed prayer
of impossible hope:
mercy,
mercy,
mercy;
the one thing
they cannot take,
cannot grind down,
cannot turn into meat.
“The Surgeon
Explains Why He Stopped Eating Wings”
By David Anson Lee
Because a bird’s
shoulder
is a marvel:
a hinge of sky-hunger
built to turn air
into possibility.
Because in residency
I held the splintered scapula
of a boy struck by a truck
and learned
that bones plead the same
no matter the species.
Because one night
I watched a gull’s white arc
slice above the hospital roof
and felt my own ribs lift,
as if remembering
a vow I hadn’t yet spoken.
Because wings
belong to flight,
not fry oil,
and the tendons
I once repaired
in human arms
twitch in my memory
whenever I pass
the freezer aisle.
Because once you have studied
a creature’s architecture:
its cathedral of motion,
you cannot pretend
you don’t know
what you’re breaking.
“The Field the
Hogs Remember”
By David Anson Lee
Before the pens,
before concrete troughs
and the metal ribs
of confinement,
there was a field
that smelled of rain
and root-sweet dirt.
The elders tell stories
of mud deep enough
to cool a summer’s anger,
of nights quilted
with cricket-thread,
of acorns dropping
like small blessings
into waiting mouths.
Some say memory
is a kind of rebellion:
a pasture recalled
becoming a gate
slightly open.
And though many were born
behind welded bars,
never touching
unclaimed soil,
they dream in colors
no factory can bleach:
the green that forgives,
the brown that welcomes,
the blue that asks
for nothing back.
In the hush before dawn
they lift their noses
toward a wind
they have never met
and stand still;
so still,
as if one more breath
could return the field
to them whole.
- David Anson Lee is a retired physician,
philosopher, and poet whose work explores interconnections among humans,
animals, and the natural world. His poetry often examines themes of compassion,
environmental responsibility, and ethical awareness shaped by decades in
medical practice. His work has appeared in Right Hand Pointing, Unbroken
Journal, The Scarred Tree, and
numerous other journals.