Wisława Szymborska - Experiment lyrics

As a short subject before the main feature - in which the actors did their best to make me cry and even laugh - we were shown an interesting experiment involving a head. The head a minute earlier was still attached to... but now it was cut off. Everyone could see that it didn't have a body. The tubes dangling from the neck hooked it up to a machine that kept its blood circulating. The head was doing just fine. Without showing pain or even surprise, it followed a moving flashlight with its eyes. It pricked up its ears at the sound of a bell. Its moist nose could tell the smell of bacon from odorless oblivion, and licking its chops with evident relish it salivated its salute to physiology. A dog's faithful head, a dog's friendly head squinted its eyes when stroked, convinced that it was still part of a whole that crooks its back if patted and wags its tail. I thought about happiness and was frightened. For if that's all life is about, the head was happy.