They hung me upside down

by the tail, molecules starched—

those Irish trackers, old-timers.

I was tribal, a trophy locked

                         with rigor mortis.
They forced my abysmal jaw,

my cough worthy of attention.

I would make no apology for stray

dogs who seized their pregnant ewes,

                         if I could speak.
Dingos took blame for the cull.

I’ve seen the You Tube videos

of Benjamin calibrating hunger

to a charcoaled thirl, eyes barred,

                         his hectored shadow.
How in God’s name they shot a pack

of us, huddled with hungry cubs.

Sold a batch to Europe as domestics.

Kept me— as mascot, emblem,

                         field study, postage stamp,
                         zoology enigma

(stuffed on a taxidermist’s plinth.)

When the last in captivity died

without too much fuss—

they dumped him in a paddock.
Have I slept for a week already?

A finger puppet in snow, a Visitorian?

The post identity theory and cli-fi symposium

may never make amends. Before Twitter

                         or the allegory goes viral
I’ll escape into ferneries, veils of Time

from the experts, bureaucrats, Lake

St Clair’s crags, from grotto to Sphinx,

jerking all the levers—till they

                         vanish from my world.