Poems by David Anson Lee
By David Anson Lee
They shaved the fur
from her back:
a square the size
of a hand,
a clearing
cut into the forest
of her body.
Numbers replaced her name.
Clipboards replaced touch.
A needle entered
as if the body were a question
and pain the only answer.
Behind the glass
they watched for signs:
tremor, swelling,
compliance.
The language was exact:
efficacy, tolerance,
acceptable loss.
No column recorded
how she turned
toward the door
each time it opened,
or how her breath
grew careful,
as if not to disturb
whatever hope remained.
When the trial ended,
they wrote:
results inconclusive.
But her body
had already concluded
everything.
“Cold Glass,
Featherless Sky”
By David Anson Lee
The freezer hums:
a low, unbroken confession.
Behind the glass:
rows of wings
stacked in pale geometry,
drumsticks folded inward
as if remembering flight
too late.
A child presses her hand
to the door.
“Did these fly?”
The parent hesitates:
long enough
for truth to enter
and be turned away.
“No.”
The word settles
like frost
over everything.
Inside,
the wings wait
in bright packaging,
each one
a quiet contradiction:
featherless,
motionless,
marketed.
The hum continues:
steady,
indifferent -
as if the store itself
has learned
how not to hear
what it keeps.
“The River
Declines to Carry Us”
By David Anson Lee
Downstream
from the plant
the river hesitates.
It slows,
as if reconsidering
what it has been asked
to carry:
blood thinned to pink,
fat drifting
like a rumor,
the unspoken remains
of thousands
made invisible.
Fish rise, then turn.
Even the reeds
lean slightly away.
The current moves on:
it must,
but something in it resists,
small eddies forming
where refusal
takes shape.
Once,
this water held sky
without question.
Now it carries
what cannot be named
without consequence.
Still,
in the quiet bend
beyond the outflow,
a single heron stands:
watching,
waiting,
as if the river
might remember
how to be itself again.
- 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.