Scent, and: Mabiki

Scent

When a hungry wordwaits, watching for meit is not concealedbehind a courtier's back,doesn't hide in the must of an arraslistening with a fervent ear,isn't a servant carrying a traywith a samovar of meaning.It is not a visitationfrom the mossy north,green-eyed fox printingits concentrated presenceon hitherto unmarked snow,but a scavenger's huntin my drought strickenmy arid south.

The signature spooris scored by claws,solitary walking trailof a ragged relationto that elegantlaureate fox.

Cunning survivorhe arrives limpingfrom a veldlaid waste by fireright foreleg scorchedsilver stripe ashen.

At dawn, at duskpast a mine's derelict headgearall the way along the railwayhe hauls his dark fur saddle,burnt when he offered

the sun a ride.His life is a gun.He points its muzzle,his large listening earseven the frayed onepoint tooas he stalks ungulates,eats carrion, leftovers of lion kills,whatever else he might find.

Rodents, rabbits, small antelopehe tears between ear and eyethen eviscerates the soft partsheart, liver, lungs,buries surplus food.If large prey eludes himhe ingests scorpions, lizards,birds, even fruit

and the garbage in my binwhen he ends up at my back doorcoming about his own businessand disgorges for meas if I were his offspring,animal remains.Among them something herby,oddly aromatic but I can't tell what.

Dogged, intractableineradicableblack-backed jackal.My familiarmy very own vermin.

Mabiki

I've read that's Japanesefor smothering, putting wet paperon a baby's nose and mouth.

Ganges' sharks received live infantstill just a hundred years ago.Wikipedia tells me so

in case I thought that what we do—killing of the newly born—is singular or new.

We've always known what bundlesmothers tossed into the Tiber:Rome founded

on abandonment and rescuethe foundling twinssuckled by a she-wolf.

Greek mothers displayed neonatesto their husbands. The rejectedwere put in jars outside the door.

Ancient Egyptiansrescued unwanted babies from manurewhere Greco-Romans left them.

Adopted or enslavedsometimes called 'copro'to recall their salvaging from dung.

In China, Marco Polo wrote,the unwanted, mainly girlswere bucketed in 'baby water.'

Almost everywhere for generationsabandonment or exposureof an infant was no crime

just death by natural causes:cold, heat, dehydrationdrowning, animal attack.

The other causes–destitution, pestilencetoo little food, too many children

disgrace, paternity disputesgirl bodies–all ledas now, to infanticide.

Care or killing of the old and youngdefines us still. But carefulwhom we blame, whom cheer.

We in our rectitudeknow little of who cries or hidesin horror at a prescribed deed.