The Living Laboratory, by David Chorlton

The cats glow
when electric charges
flow into them,
the monkeys do not know
why they have been chosen
to be held inside a vice
that tightens when they breathe,
and a rabbit is the sore chemicals create
as they drip through a parting
in its fur. A rat
is a monosyllable in a jungle
of medical language,
a pincushion for science,
and trained to stand on the point
of a needle
to prove how small a life
can become when there is no crime
for which the punishment
is administered.