Another dead mouse on the porch

Left limp and lifeless on the bottom step

Death is so final a step, yet

A dead mouse has possibilities.

 

Draw a chalk outline around it

Gather evidence

Make a list of suspects

Interview potential witnesses

(I saw a cat that wasn't ours skulking away from the porch earlier!)

Conduct suveillance

Finger the murderer

 

Observe as the body

decays, decomposes, degrades

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust"

Lessons in biology, ecology, philosophy

The vessel that once housed a mouse life

Eventually flattens

A dead mouse pancake

A mouse fur rug.

 

Decipher the implied

message in the

leaving of a dead mouse

on a porch that is not one's own

A sign of honor and respect,

or some kind of feline insult,

A slap in the face with a mouseskin glove?

Call in the Pet Psychic

Because who really know with cats?

 

Wrap the cold furry body carefully

In a handful of tissues and

put it in a small box

Take it out back to bury with the other mice

To practice saying goodbye

Because it's certain you will have

to do that some day

say some kind words over the mini headstone made with

leftover concrete from the shed

Here lies Mouse.  He lived a mousy life in every way,

and hopefully he is happy in mouse heaven.

Place some flowers

And hope that there will be no

dead mouse on the porch

tomorrow.

I make my head, as I used to,

out of a paper bag,

pull it down to the collarbone,

 

draw eyes around my eyes,

with purple and green

spikes to show surprise,

a thumb-shaped nose,

 

a mouth around my mouth

penciled by touch, then colored in'

flat red.

 

With this new head, the body now

stretched like a stocking and exhausted  could

dance again; if I made a

tongue I could sing.

 

An old sheet and it's Halloween;

but why is it worse or more

frightening, this pinface

head of square hair and no chin?

 

Like an idiot, it has no past

and is always entering the future

through it's slots of eyes, purblind

and groping with it's thck smile,

a tentacle of perpetual joy.

 

Paper head, I prefer you

because of your emptiness;

from within you any word could still be said.

 

With you I could have

more than one skin,

a blank interior, a repertoire

of untold stories,

a fresh beginning.