Lilliputian

 

The mouse scampers across the counter

after a long stay in that hole

where she has stashed her bits and babies.

Her climb over the basket's fruit

to an escape behind the gas stove

erupts in sudden panic. I shriek and she hastens

home so fast I can't fathom

if the fur was brown or patched, if it was a second or seconds.

A petite thing. The wind-up clock won't remember

but my bones record the shock, the jolt

of being cornered between distraction

and dismay. I was lingering in the idyll

of rain cleansing our garden: leaves and grass,

a wall knotted with vines. Its stone Book of Kells

when  she broke into my solitude. A rodent, striving not to starve

and sustain its young. Unlike her, I've never felt

so desperate except in dreams -- where I can't find you

(with an  umbrella in hand)

scavenging the street for  coins, threads, thoughts, whispers...

anything shaken from your shirt or shadow.