"Margaret and Me" - A Poem by Pearl

Oh my darling brother.
I don’t want to stay.
I don’t want to go.
Here they keep saying that I’m too slow
at managing the operating system of this body
and the rules for getting ahead in this culture.
Or words to that effect.
I guess I could leave.
I’d just be sent out on another mission
to another weird planet
with almost incomprehensible beings
too soon.
I’ve done my mission so well
that I’ve been forgotten
taken for granted.
I would like to stay a little longer here
if I could retire from this work.
I don’t mean to wish any harm to the populace
but I’d like to give them the curse of empathy.
Six months of it
might do it for some.
I’ve yet to recognize anyone from home around here.
I know there are many others
but we aren’t here to socialize
or support each other.
There will be one
one who will make a bit of a name for herself.
She will be scholarly
and also go out in the field
as we do
and she will inspire many young women
during the mid-twentieth century.
Then her work will fall out of favor
“it’s flawed,” they will say
“It’s ridiculous!”
They will have no idea
that they are also real subjects
of her anthropological research
and not in dry facts and dusty tomes.
My own realms of research
have not been nearly so recognized
my having been bounced out of
one arena after another.
But not before I’ve picked up the vibes
and relayed them through my biology
and over to the benevolent, unobtrusive ones.
The ones who won’t interfere
but merely want a heads up
when things become dangerous
or perhaps for sheer entertainment.
What affects the few
affects all eventually.
We can relay like cats
Margaret and me
although the cats are not from our home.
Oh my darling brother
I don’t want to stay.
I don’t want to go.