Practice Mouse

 

The last of a breeding pair
made docile with cohabitation
that ended just this morning
is strapped prone over the electrodes

with Velcro bonds. The doppler, the laser,
the tiny rectal probe, the video screen
magnifying his Nair-shaven thighs,
meaty as drumsticks under the stereoscope –

when the skin is cut there
it tears like butcher paper,
and all around his saphenous vein
is a twinkling roe of sandy fat.

Its granules burst when pulled away,
and subliming oil-drops blink
up onto the surface of the saline.
Now and then these salty pools dry up

while the sensors work,
but when they’re dripped full again
the flesh beneath gleams sanguineous
like clay receiving its first glaze.

On the littered path home from the lab
I brush off from my bare ankle
what’s left of a small old leaf,
a sapless skeleton of veins.

 

Jessica Polka (UNC-CH)