Perfusion

They told me not to name the mouse.

That way, no tears would flow

When I stopped its heart beat;

Or when it writhed in pain,

Staring at me with glazed eyes –

Staring at me, betrayed.

That was the one rule I betrayed.

“Your name is Stripes,” I told the mouse,

Melted by his sparkling black eyes.

I traced the silky chocolate flow

Of his fur, taking great pain

To memorize the rhythmic beat

Of his warm pulse; each beat

Wavering the hand that betrayed

A syringe. Past squeaks of pain

I whispered falsehoods to my mouse;

His papery ears twitched to the flow

Of my breath as focus fled his eyes.

Later my deceitful Judas eyes

Watched his paws spasm, beating

The air; fighting the creeping flow

Of sedatives. Soon he would be trayed,

Skin flaps spread as I snapped tiny mouse

Ribs and spine. I was a bearer of pain

Sheltered behind a fume hood pane.

I crucified Stripes; his et tu Brute eyes

Watched me pin martyred mouse

Hands and feet. Razors and scissors beat

Flesh, each cut leaving more organs betrayed.

I slit the heart and watched the blood flow.

Pumping fixatives, I observed their slow flow

Bleach entrails. Only death would end the pain -

Staking procedure. Without emotion betrayed

They’d trade lives for nothing but practice, but I

Was an inadequate scientist told to beat

Back sobs and butcher a lab mouse.

Now, chemicals flow through veins past my passive eyes;

My steady hands stab needles into hearts that still beat.

For, I never betrayed Stripes — It was just a lab mouse.