We have all seen the hunting trophies
set against shields, the wavy pointed horns
of blackbuck or impala or the magnificent 
branched antlers of the red deer stag.
 
...

But when a slaver so loved his servant slave
Fanny that he removed her hand for taxidermy
and it became a cherished heirloom passing 
from generation to generation to generation -
 
the dark skin of her hand with its pink 
nails with crescent-moon cuticles on her thumbs
hanging from the picture rail above the dining-room fire,
it's knuckles knobbly and blackened,
 
while they ate their wild pheasant and wine,
from family to family; children growing old
knowing the Black slave hand they thought
they loved; in this act of preserved mutilation
 
how the children in their pinafores and frilly bonnets
who never knew her played with her hand;
how her hand remained a slave in the way 
it remained captured in service against her will -
 
I have never wished so hard that her long
lean fingers could make a firm balled fist,
perfectly clenched, with the veins in her hand
bulging, overlooking their bland pea soup starter.