Sunday, January 6, 2013

poem || Peter Sherburn-Zimmer



Without The Lab Assistant
 
We might never know
What the researchers did not know:
 
This rat's name,
If she had a name.
Her grandmother's name.
 
Whether this rat's mother
Grieved
When she was taken away
Because of
A sore on her elbow
Or a deformity of the eye.
 
We might know
How many generations of rats died
Before the project was abandoned,
 
How many federal dollars
Were spent
Relocating the workers
When the laboratory was closed down.
 
We might know
What the researchers know
 
but we might never know
what the lab assistant knows.

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