I am sick of the dialectic of hunter and prey,
baiting traps with peanut butter while you
find secret passageways inside my cupboards.
What are you doing in my attic now, Lady
Mouse? All day you go unnoticed, but at night,
awake, I lie listening to your back and forth.
The cat hears, too. On patrol, he jumps
off the bed, as I pull the blankets around me
and imagine what it would be like to live
a slandered life, the way you do.
Vermin, people say. No, master of survival,
you make your nest secure, and because of you
I love more the darkness in my room, the warmth
of my wife pressed against me in her sleep.
I pretend to be your size. Every sense
converts to hearing through the synesthesia of fear.
What is that? Wind plotting against my life,
sharpening its blade of snow.
Four delicate feet, their gentleness unable
to hide their claws. Silence
becomes my house. I know each of its rooms.
I live behind the wainscot of my thoughts.
Still restless, I get up and trace your route
above me, and find cat looking out a window,
as though he heard you, somehow, crawling
through the shingles into an attic above the moon.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 25, Issue 4.
William Welch lives in Utica, NY where he works as a registered nurse. His poetry has appeared in various journals, recently in Little Patuxent Review, The Bookends Review, and The Decadent Review. He edits Doubly Mad (doublymad.org). You can find more about him on his website, williamfwelch.com.
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