Mouse
The noises that we make are quite predictable -
the mouse is so ill it can only judder
in its tiny pain.
You said it was so pretty and ran upstairs.
You must have heard the iron on the step,
the lifting of the dustbin lid.
And I was so shocked-
on my fingers the little shame of urine,
the silent bravery of blood.
Thanks The Clinic.
Toks, it's very gratifying to be remembered after all these years. That poem was in my second book, published in 1980. I wrote it in my first house, in Eye, Suffolk. We had a cat that used to present us with numerous rodent corpses. The one in the poem, unfortunately, was only half-dead so I had to kill it on the kitchen step. With best wishes, William Peskett
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