Mouse

At about 3 a.m. I walked into the kitchen and turned on the light just in time to see a deer mouse scamper across the floor and disappear into a space that I would have a hard time slipping a piece of paper into. It was impressive.

They're here. I know they're here. And I've purchased the traps. I just can't seem to get myself to set them.

So I did the next best thing..... ;)

I wrote a poem.












MICE


I hear them in the walls
after night’s dark heart starts beating
and snow’s enormous silence
finally settles down in moonlight.
From their nests
of soup labels and candle wax,
thread and onion skins,
they open their small eyes;
silence has touched them
to say night has come,
it’s safe now,
and the tiny, voracious mechanism
of their hunger
turns away from nothing.
They even eat the sweet, soft glue
that binds my books,
and later the pages themselves,
whole chapters,
while I dream that they’ve nibbled
the soft edges of sleep,
and entered in droves,
thousands of them
pouring through the holes they’ve made,
laughing and running
upright on their hind legs,
bigger than me,
speaking in tongues
a language I understand,
showing me how they do it,
spreading their wings
and flying straight up out of sight.

____

By the way, thank you Joey, KP, Cheryl for commenting on my last post; you made it feel worthwhile.