93,651 guinea pigs
felt pain last year
during scientific experiments.
Noble pigs, we only wished
to know you! To know
ourselves through you,
and perhaps extract a tad
of profit from our knowledge
of you, and maybe in a few
isolated unfortunate instances
a smidge of pleasure too,
pre-approved for forgiveness
by the whiteness of our coats
and guided at times
by the light of our mission
to optimize beauty products
for safety and affordability,
so that even children
among us, given
humble allowances,
could feel glamorous
and somehow televised
while gazing, for instance,
lovingly into the cages
that contain your brothers and sisters
(who are doing fine, by the way,
if a bit lonely, a bit gnawed on
by a constant, low-grade
uncertainty). I was at
the cafe the other day
with my friend Lexi
when she mentioned, offhand,
she wished she could be held
by a lover the way time
itself held her. What
would you make of that,
dear pigs, if you could think?
I myself didn’t think to ask
because I was nervous and
over-caffeinated, but I think
she was referring
to gentleness, and possibly
acceptance, which are states
humans tend to crave,
believe it or not,
though we are not so good
at actually attaining them.
Then a particular noise
on her phone signalled
it was time to split
the bill and say
goodbye to each other.
As she walked away,
I took out the small notebook
containing my to-do list
and, with immense satisfaction,
crossed off just do your best
to be nice and not weird
for three hours.
挺不错的样子嘛！