Mice came in early this year
and brought their relatives as if
they are a relocated city replete
with suburbs and shopping centers,
such as the box of chamomile tea
with bags shredded inside plus
half-full with almonds. My
heavy sweater I hid behind
the couch until I could mend it,
which rained lentils once I finally
shook it out. It’s my first year
without a cat and this is the way
they celebrate. My son used to set
spring traps but I can’t, sometimes
they are still alive, it would be
worse than a mauling from the cat.
I lure them into locking cells, then
take them down the trail to turn them
free on the snow. Such a shock
for them to learn the cold outside
the kitchen, this world where they
have forgotten they belong without
doors, cracks, ceilings, and floors.
And where, if the land rejoices to
receive them, it shows it in the same
calamitous way the cat and I do.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 25, Issue 4.
Laurinda Lind lives in New York’s North Country, close to Canada. Some of her poems are in Atlanta Review, New American Writing, Paterson Literary Review, and Spillway. She is a Keats-Shelley Prize winner and a finalist in several competitions, most recently the Poetry Super Highway Poetry Prize.
See all items about Laurinda Lind
