Saw a TV program about Dancing Bears
in Turkey.
Children are delighted
to watch these big, surprisingly light-footed beasts
do a jig
as their eyes roll lovingly,
almost passionately,
toward their human partners
(“Roms,” as gypsies prefer to be called)
holding the rope
that leads to their nose.
It never enters the children’s mind
that the dancing bear
could be anything but happy,
just as they are,
in watching it.
After all,
would their parents bring them
to watch a horribly cruel display
of torture?
could the gay rhythm to which they dance
possibly be that of unrelenting, excruciating tugs
to the nose-ring, tongue-ring, jaw?
and could what the bear goes through
in their presence
conceivably be only a small glimpse
of its agony?
Yes, they wonder
why the bear’s nose
has that funny curve,
and why its jaw is askew
and permanently agape,
and why its frothy breath
is crimson,
but they assume it’s just smiling.
So Turkey has finally,
officially,
banned the practice —
which has not made it disappear,
of course,
but has simply made it more profitable
to cater to a new demand,
in which the bear cub is duly purchased,
disfigured, tortured, displayed,
and then sold to animal-welfare activists,
who take it to a retirement farm
while the Rom re-invests part of his profits
in the next bear cub.
Supply and demand.
Market economics.
They say that the nose ring
the world has placed in the Rom people’s noses
is almost as painful as the bear’s.
But that’s hard to credit,
from the bear’s end of the rope…