Three poems by my partner, Lisa Reily. Thank you, too, to Gillian Prew, for republishing them!
The Friendship is Over
Sped along a track in a high speed sled,
secured against flailing in a special flying suit,
a chimp with windblast burns on his face;
his fear grimace, almost a human smile –
the perfect disposition for space travel.
Hundreds of macaques in secret boxes,
transported on regular passenger planes;
their teeth chatter, they can hardly move;
and oblivious, we sit in economy class,
complaining about the food and leg room.
A mother monkey drugged, her milky nipples
deliberately taped; her baby cries, shakes her;
but she cannot wake to feed him; she falls
in her attempt, to the sound of human laughter;
she is an experiment, on childhood neglect.
Sad-eyed macaques in empty steel cages pick
at bottle top apparatus jutting from their heads,
like they are bottles of soft drink; only blood,
not soft drink, drips slowly down their cheeks;
and chemicals, not sugars…
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Ion Corcos 