Kindness to Animals

If I went vegetarian
And didn’t eat lambs for dinner,
I think I’d be a better person
And also thinner.

But the lamb is not endangered
And at least I can truthfully say
I have never, ever eaten a barn owl,
So perhaps I am OK.

This poem was commissioned by the editor of “The Orange Dove of Fiji,” an anthology for the benefit of the World Wide Fund for Nature. It was rejected as unsuitable.