Dr. Harry Harlow's Primate Laboratory
        —University of Wisconsin, 1958

I was cut down like a fruit
before they hauled me with the others
toward a town of skinny trees.
In the back of the van
I looked down and found myself

separate from the other bodies.
It was a nice, sharp feeling
and I tested it by kicking
my arms and legs sharply
all the way to the clinic where I lived
the first few weeks. I pleased
the men by letting them take

their mms and ccs. And as a gift
I was given a wire mother
and cloth mother to choose between.
The wire one held the milk

but I was drawn to the feeling
of the cloth on my skin.
Neither of their faces moved.

This is a message for my brothers
and sisters who may fo llow me
from a long way off: Between
the two kinds of hunger there can be no question.

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Copyright © 2017 Sarah Rose Nordgren All rights reserved
from Southern Indiana Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission