Rats
Rats in the attic,
rats in the empty pillowcases,
under the wooden planks
in the carriage house,
used to soak up the oil spill.
They come scurry about as easily
as the sun rises and cuts my curtains into a shell;
thin as the dead part of my nail.
I have never belonged to other than here.
When I close my eyes and spin and lay upside
down hanging off my bed when I open my eyes,
I can see their tails wriggle
back in through the ceiling cracks.
I saw one full once, but it was too skinny
and bald I think it was the chicken I had for lunch last week.
Those rats must have drug the limp bird out of the compost
and painted it wet with their licking tongues.
I like the rats, I know they are there and I like to think
they stay because of like-ness for me.
When I play in the musty basement full of sunken boxes,
when I hopscotch on the painted tiles in the bathroom,
even when I press my knuckles against
the crumbling bricks outside, I feel them watching over me.
But the rats do not stay long,
they leave before the bread molds and dries and molds again.
They went in silent streams like the shredded curtains
that push against my face just this morning.
