Experimental Animals Poem by Dennis O'Driscoll

After Miroslav Holub
It’s much cushier when it’s raining rabbits
than cats and dogs. The animals for experiment
should not betray too much intelligence.
It grows unnerving to watch their actions mimic yours;
terror and horror you can empathise with.

But, for real heartbreak, take a newborn pig.
Fantastically ugly; possessing nothing
and desiring nothing except its swig of milk;
legs warping under all that weight
of uselessness, stupidity and snout.

When I must kill a piglet, I hesitate a while.
For about five or six seconds.
In the name of all the beauty of the world.
In the name of all the sadness of the world.
“What’s keeping you?”, someone bursts in then.

Or I burst in on myself.