Guinea Pig

Guinea pigs are the animals of choice
for elementary-school classroom pets;
they live extremely boring lives
and are amazingly content to do so.
Provided with enough food,
They will eat till they burst.
Their cages smell, no matter
how often they are cleaned.

My best friend had a guinea pig.
It was black as coal
and when it died
it was cold as coal.
My girlfriend’s mother asked me,
me, an innocent bystander
unimplicated in the rodent’s demise,
to dispose of the remains.

Why couldn’t she do it?
I still don’t know.
Even my girlfriend was uninformed
of the fate of this pet.
Perhaps it slept, lying as it did
on its side in its cage,
unmoving, unmoved;
and I wrapped it in newspaper like a fish from the market
and deposited it without ceremony in the can
holding next week’s garbage pickup.

I still harbour resentment
at this manipulation of my youthful devotion,
at my friend’s mother’s betrayal,
at the disposal of this lifeless corpse
belonging to something she once loved.