Animal Farm, or Song of the Colonial Governor-General

Admit it. You hate the body
because it can be broken,
stabbed, shot full of holes.
And so you became a butcher.

Say the spirit cannot be broken.
Say you see better than anyone
how fiercely an ox, a hog, a cock
fights to stay alive, until the end.

You wonder how nothing seems
to stop this rat: sucking, gnawing
through cement walls to snatch
scraps of gristle---not knowing

what you need to kill, or why.
Beat it with a shovel: skin-slither,
pestle of skull and will. Admit
it shamed you to cover with dung.

Suji Kwok Kim, Notes From The Divided Country