Saturday, February 4, 2012

Someone's Got to Get Lucky

I'm one of those many things
Filled with intent to be lost.
Happiest when forgotten,
Set aside, mislaid, not missed,
Most myself when loneliest.
From whom or what I'm trying
To shake loose I'll never know.

All I know is that craving
To disappear completely
Without ceasing to observe,
A ridiculous idea
I know is ridiculous
But suspect is adaptive,
Like a mouse craving tunnels,

And, like the mouse's craving,
Also opportunity
For the world to set its traps.
Each night in our rural home,
Ramshackle, lovely to mice,
I set out tunnel-like traps,
Designed to capture, not kill.

In the morning, I check them.
Often there's a big-eared mouse
Caught in the snug box, ready
To be trekked far from the house,
The warm and abundant house,
Then dumped out into sagebrush,
So I can feel merciful.

My favorite spot to drop them
Is near the cemetery,
Disused, small, by the roadside,
Unkempt, more scrub than headstones.
Seems like a good hiding spot
For a cowering rodent,
Grassy, seedy ground cover.

But I know their odds are long.
Life's like that, a lottery.
The odds for any one mouse
Are atrocious, but the odds
Of many mice in the house,
Despite those I trap, are good.
Someone's got to get lucky.

Even the cleverest traps
Won't change mouse genetics soon.
Small holes and tunnels still work
Often enough to appeal
To further generations.
I wonder where my daughter
Will go to escape the world.

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