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.