Sacrifice To Science
A giant beetle lying on his back.
In Texas larger never have I seen.
His writhing legs. I’m fearful of attack.
His jaws might pinch my finger in between.
Back to abode, container to retrieve.
With flip-flop scooped into the Tupperware.
New bioethics that I must conceive.
A seal excluding any further air.
No cotton ball, my toilet paper wad,
absorbs this toxic liquid I possess.
The killing jar with beetle not quite dead.
My insect murder, guilty, I confess.
Not only my aesthetics to fulfill.
My kids, the ones I demonstrate the norms.
The values in them that I would instill.
To value life in all its many forms.
To take a life for art? Impossible!
Consider ethics of activities.
To satisfy what is insatiable:
our scientific curiosity.
T.H. Chalm 