Mailable Live Animals @USPS.com: There for You!
Animal Rights Poetry By Lynne Goldsmith From All-Creatures.org

What about when
the box breaks open
to little chick heads
peeping, peering,
not knowing what to do
other than to move
from egg shells of their travel
pods, broken yolks
for their feeding on,
like aliens from another planet
come down to visit earthlings,
aliens assigned such little worth,
just several dollars a bird
dropped in spaceship box
of convenient ups and downs
along conveyor belts through chutes
down and up escalators through doors
to turned around and right side up—
most chicks surviving the trip
like their mailable counterparts
(amphibians, chameleons, baby reptiles
aboard this time), creatures okayed,
approved for airline transport
by the U.S. Postal Service,
and then for pickup
seventy-two hours after journey
of no rest, food, water, just cardboard
because chicks (these in the box)
were wanted for their cute, wanted
for their slaughter.
They have no rights
in the humans’ world.
And why would they
when they’re just
mail-in-order birds,
and buying online
as easy as one-two-three.

©Lynne Goldsmith, 2020

Image by zoosnow from Pixabay.jpg