Written After Reading About Vachel Lindsay's Love For Animals Poem by M.L. Squier

I am sorry for killing
All the tiny ants
All the gardener snakes
A few sparrows
(I am most ashamed of this) .
I felt the pain when my pellets flew into their tender skin.
A few I say
But those few seem like a million today.
Forgive me, O, god of sparrows

Forgive me, O, god of felines
The torture I gave to one black cat
Inside a cardboard box
Shaken and whirled
In
Breathless darkness.
Yellow eyes were aflame with fear and hate.

My jealousy was
A kind of madness.

I never hurt a dog.