By: Bailey Vincent

I stand

Steely scissors in trembling hands

Over the scaly dweller of the stream

The creature mellowed by morphine

To lay its shivering silver body on the slate table

 

I completed the paperwork

But I was not prepared

To take the life of the silvery White Sucker fish

Between bones, the humane nerve resides

The tip of the opercular

The top of the first vertebrae

 

What gives me the right to take its life?

I am not its god

Just as equal of a creation as she is

 

Might I have to worry of other’s

Who signed a form to take my life?

All just to learn of my internals’ secrets

Never meant to get out.

 

Snip.