Naming Animals
By Kate Maxwell
May 5, 2025
May 5, 2025
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You don’t need a map, you say—
can recognise exhibits, replicate the sounds, match colours with the pictures examined many years beneath the bedside lamp. It’s true; no guardian’s needed at the zoo, once you’ve come of age, once teeth are down, not wisdom, but at least incisors sharp enough for biting. You used to call crocs, snappydiles and sang to them of never smiling while I gripped your T-shirt tight in case you leaned towards their pit, but I can’t hold much longer. So, welcome to feeding time, where, hoof by hide and snarl by growl, softer souls with softer skins are shoved aside until the trough is almost dry. I know I always taught you—wait your turn but once the pen is open, run, child, run. The wild take what they want and give no quarter. You think the keeper will save you? Their shots are aimed to quell, not to assist. I’d like to tell you: take your time, view a while, watch the ways the creatures swing and sway, note twitch of ears and hackles rise before you sign up for the muck out. (Believe me, there’ll be time for shovelling shit!) but you’ve already run ahead and brushed aside my hand. |
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Kate Maxwell has been published and awarded in Australian and International literary magazines such as Cordite, Books Ireland, The Galway Review and has work forthcoming in The Threepenny Review. She’s published two collections: Never Good at Maths (2021) and Down the Rabbit Hole (2023). Her interests include film, wine, and sleeping.
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Author’s Note:
‘Naming Animals’ focuses on the simultaneous joy and pain of parenthood and the hardship of letting go. After all the advice and help we try to give our beloved children, we ultimately understand that we cannot protect them from the world. I think of my beautiful, independent, but fragile son in the last line, ‘but you’ve already run ahead and brushed aside my hand.’