February 1st: Meeting an Old Acquaintance

February 1^st: Meeting an Old Acquaintance Beneath the Floorboards

First they’re skirting wires and beams

their nimble feet and twisting toes

(and webs maybe for gliding) it’s that

noise that reminds me of the rats

in our house.  When I was a kid

there were rats big as a small cat

and they chewed and hissed in

the partition and I imagined

they’d chew right through the plaster

and go for the sweet spot first

(or so my mother’d said) my throat.

And so when they were wintering

with us I made myself small as a coin

in the bed while they chewed through

the night and plaster crumbled and

snow fell relentlessly from a gray

as a rat’s back sky.  I think now

though it’s squirrels under my feet

and earlier I heard what sounded

like baby birds.  Chirping.  I swear

I heard birds.  But it’s February

1^st.  So no birds.  But by now I bet

there’s a whole community beneath

me, setting up house the way

humans do and I bet, it’s early

enough, they set to chittering

about whose spot is whose and        

it was settled quick in their instinctual

cowardice.  I don’t know who won what.

 

I favor the idea of squirrels over rats

though I suppose since intelligence of rats

is without question and their ferocity,

if I had to have a choice, and the brawl

was on, I’d have my fear in my mouth

and around my sweet spot throat, hot

as a cinnamon jawbreaker and we’d go

together, not friends or enemies

but old acquaintances say, trench forged,

like kids who cross

the line and decide shit, this is stupid,

what about we go have a smoke

and we do, we blow out of those tight

walls and take the next boat, yeah

that one, SS Squirrel, and leave

the pissy pants vermin behind

in the ceiling to fight their kin
into the second coming.