she is my inner pig,
the one I consult
to ask
whether whatever happens to be troubling me
at the time
(a paper rejected, a grant application denied, a personal disappointment)
matters.
She has just arrived at Fearman’s
at the end of days of transport,
her first glimpse of light,
thirsty, frightened,
after the brief eternity
of her 6-month lifetime,
confined,
in the misery and horror
of those bolted, shuttered,
cramped, suffocating,
brutal
cylindroid tubes we keep noticing
in what we had imagined
was an innocent pastoral countryside.
Now she is 45 minutes
before being brutally thrust into the CO2 chamber,
and then the foul sabre
that will sever her larynx,
and the drop
into the scalding water
to disinfect her sullied flesh,
to make it worthy
of our plates and palates.
Her answer is always the same.
No, it does not matter.
None of that matters.
Save me.
