My mother was killed.
The Big C, masked in pretty
pink ribbons. What good are they now?
Last week, we tested rats at school,
and while it squealed my eyes tightened
the grip around its chest.
“Put the needle into its skin,”
the professor said through gummed up goggles
that hid her eyes, made her blind.
One down, two down, three.
Dissection was next
and for the sake of science
I grabbed rat four and poked again.
My mother was killed.
I’ll say it again, but it might not make sense
coming from the girl who killed
rats to advance in Biology.
I cooed calculations at rat four,
watched the way it squirmed
like a fat worm in a bird’s nest
or my mother with ace wraps
on her flattened chest.
In recent memory animal testing
went beyond cruelty into
egocentrism.
This eulogy is about me now isn’t it?
But if needle to neck
could have brought Mom back,
if I could have found the cure
to this pink disease,
if it had been more than about passing
biology, I could have stood the sight
of thin ribs against the distorted belly.
So we gather here today
for another victim of a faceless disease
and tomorrow I pursue
my degree and rat number five.