The Fifth Plague: the Beasts

Once I spoke of you as I did of the beasts, Sephorah.
Finding in them everything that is yours
Or finding in you everything that is theirs, it's the same thing.

I am talking about those times when you were called nature
Or when nature was a woman, it's the same thing.

But the beasts all perished,
My Sephorah.

They perished in you, grievously, one by one
Died the grace of mares in the fields at sunset,
Died the sacrifice of camels in the fallow desert,
Died the naivety of the donkeys chewing on thorny bushes,
Died the kindness of the sheep and the fertility of the cow.

They were cut, one by one ,
And perhaps it was I who cut them, one by one,
The threads that tied you to nature,
My Sephorah.