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| MDX MICE
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I always feel sorry for them,
the lab mice raised
specifically to have muscular dystrophy.
I can't imagine what sadness
lies in their little mouse bodies
as their muscles fail.
Of course, these aren't maze mice
and so will never compete.
They stumble into walls,
struggle to get to the food dish,
will never be placed to tread
on the hamster's wheel.
Still, how are they?
Does someone bring a water bowl to them?
Are they all huddled
in a lifeless muscle-less lump together?
No such things
as mouse wheelchairs.
Who are the moms
they've never known?
Caged, with only the white sky of the lab,
they wait.
Wait for the gloved hand
that will one day descend and choose them.
Inject them with the latest idea,
some kind of math for a cure.
And maybe then they'll be released
into the real mouse world,
fully clothed in a new muscle suit,
munching away
through the thin cardboard of our hopes.
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from The Wind is a Tall Man Striding
watershedBooks
2000
Copyright © Jim Slominski
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