Rebecca Baggett

The Mouse

I am about to climb into the bed
in this borrowed cabin, 
to burrow under the quilt 
with its many-colored patchwork squares,

anticipating a sweet night’s rest,
but a glance down reveals a scatter
of mouse droppings on the floor.
I clamber out and bend to see 

a shadow draped over the dark line
of the cling trap I hadn’t known was there—
a gray and white mouse,
sprawled like a child so lost in sleep

that half its body dangles
off the bed.  And all I can think is dirt
and rot and pellets of shit fouling
the floor under the white raft on which 

I thought to drift into sleep, and so
I sweep the body, trap and all,
into the dustpan, stumble to the door
and fling it off the porch as far

as possible—no ceremony, no remorse.
Until I wake in the middle of the night
to think of the tiny creature
and its terrible end, shared now

with whatever crept from the woods
to claim that small body,
to take that death and eat.

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