The big mother rat sat outside,
near the sewers exit,
cleaning her face
and enjoying the first light of morning.
Contented, smiled, had just eaten a month old abortion.
She had no perception of guilt
not even when the tiny human heart still ticked
as she ripped into soft flesh.
It wasn’t for a mere rat to reflect upon
what could have happened
if the foetus had been allowed to be a living child.
She had been a mother too,
most of her offspring had died,
which is the cruel law of nature in a colony of rats,
but those who lived
did well in the sewer world
and she was proud of them.