faux fur

do you ever feel like 
the hunted empty animal?
i come with a "cruelty free" label
& whisper to my wearers,
"you & i both know this is not true."
once as a girl my aunt 
who now i haven't seen in years
was wearing mink. deep brown fur
wrapped around her neck. i asked her,
"how do they kill them?"
she said, "it doesn't hurt." i think 
she was talking about herself.
flesh is always judged in proximity 
to its owner. pain, an element
kept inside perfume bottles.
weighty only in the mouth
of a shiny body. minks are mostly
raised in fur farms. little nests
of hurry. this is what i feel like sometimes
when every door becomes a knife. 
i wear a faux fur jacket & still manage
to feel like i am hiding inside
a different animal. i take it out to the yard.
stuff it with my organs & let it run around.
i weep. i am so happy to see my blood
doing something different than what
i'm doing now. the mink fur breathing
around my aunt's neck. my emptied flesh
in the shower. mist enveloping us.
the creature falls apart. does not know
how to live. i feed myself 
all the sugar in the house. 
lift up to the ceiling. i know 
someone is talking to me. 
i know they have a bucket. i want 
all the fur. i have never been able to
tell the difference anyway. wrap myself.
make a new beast. one without lungs.
without a farm. our flesh as our flesh 
as our flesh.