10-07-11 / A poem response by Amy Morton /
The mouse doesn’t know
That his sociability is inhibited
That he prefers the second stranger over the first or that
This has anything to do with his neural pathways
His ability to produce serotonin.
The full tonnage of what the mouse doesn’t know could fill textbooks and science journals.
The mouse doesn’t know
That he doesn’t produce as much cholesterol as his cage-mates
(And they don’t know that either).
And he doesn’t know that his spine is overdeveloped.
And he probably doesn’t know he’s a mouse.
The only difference between the Fmr1 mouse, the Slc6a4 mouse, the Igf-1 mouse, the Dhcr7 mouse, the other mice, all the mice are all alike, the only difference is…
Where they come from?
How much they weigh?
Whether they play with each other?
They’re mice. Shouldn’t we just let them be mice?
We just let humans be humans.
Don’t we?