Everything was Alive and Dying
(2016 cruelty to animals edition)
Janet Kuypers
8/2/16 additions to the beginning of a 1995 poem
I had a dream the other night
And in it
I walked out of the city
to a farm road
where the square acres of living land
just started to bloom
displaying a colorful checkerboard quilt
as far as the eye could see
I walked along the empty road
next to the crops at three thousand south
and a small little pig
walked right up to me
now, this little pig
didn’t look like a farm pig,
he looked like a ten inch
pot-belly pig
and he walked right up to me
and he said thank you
for not using cosmetics
tested on animals,
I know you humans are pretty smart,
so there’s gotta be a way
to make yourselves pretty
without killing me
and I said,
I think the companies
don’t worry about the animals
unless the chemicals are toxic,
meaning it’s toxic to humans
the little pig then snorted
which lives are worth saving,
the little pig then said
cut-throat corporations
don’t answer questions like that,
I said.
And he said I know.
But thank you anyway.
*
Yeah, I had a dream the other night
I walked out of the city
to a forest
and there were neatly paved bicycle paths
and trash cans every fifty feet
and trash every ten
and then a raccoon came right up to me
she had a few little baby raccoons
following her, it was so cute, I
wish I had my camera
and she spoke to me,
she said, thank you
thank you for not buying furs,
I know you humans are pretty smart,
you have to be able to figure out a way
to keep yourselves warm
without killing me
and I said, you know they don’t
do it for warmth,
they do it for fashion, they do it
for power. And she said I know.
But thank you anyway.
*
Then I walked a little further
and there was a stray cat
she still had her little neon collar on
with a little bell
and she walked a few feet,
stretched her front paws,
oh, she looked so darling
and then she walked right up to me
and she said thank you
and I said for what?
And she just looked at me for a moment,
her little ears were standing straight up,
and then she said, you know,
in some countries I’m considered
a delicacy. And I said how
do you know of these things?
And she said
when somebody eats one of you
word gets around
and then she looked up at me again
and said, and in some countries
the cow is sacred. Wouldn’t they
love to see how you humans
prepare them for slaughter, how you
hang them upside-down
and slit their throats
so their still beating hearts
will drain out all the blood for you
and she said isn’t it funny
how arbitrary your decision
to eat meat is?
and I said, don’t put me
in that category, I don’t eat meat
and she said I know —
and then I woke up in a sweat.
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