There
will be Noise
Not Very Quiet 5, 2019.
All perfectly legal ―
just
a tank in the market
crammed with lobsters, each
with serial number marked dpi
NSW
on a label tied with string.
Some tags
branded with a flower
like the red cap on a banana.
Take your pick from spiny
black crustaceans
(don’t worry ―
they’ll be prettier in the pot).
Some are restless, upended.
Could they be attempting
to escape from the tank?
Perhaps it was like this
on trains to Treblinka,
when people, stamped with
numbers
from the Warsaw Ghetto's
Umschlagplatz
huddled at the cracks
of overcrowded railway trucks,
vying for ventilation,
grasping onto life until the
chambers
and the screaming.
Now miles from the markets,
I can’t blot out those
creatures
climbing on each other, trying
to find
a spot to settle. Not being
sentient,
they won’t know the end.
There will be noise.
Trapped air expanding in their
shells
will begin to escape through
the gaps.
They'll become pink
butterflies.
They
will not feel a thing.S
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