PURGATORIAL MICE
1
Scholars debate why mice are the only animals
Dante allows in Purgatory.
Intuitively, I see the implication.
My own life becomes a model of near hell.
There are escape hatches even
adorable vermin can’t flee from.
You and I are such, amid petrichor
and popsicle sticks.
2
It’s always very interesting when someone claws
away their beauty to make their suffering
plain. Take the example of a certain saint
who ripped the nipples off her breasts.
That says a lot. Does one hurt from others, or
for them? Sometimes a siren call
is reverse seduction: Stay away. My
mousey scalp is clay and fire. I think
about my ex’s depression constantly.
Boredom is not always a fuselage or carapace.
3
Escalators used to take children through malls
of the great American suburbs the same way
one could charter the Alps then skinny dip
in the south of France on a lark. Now
vices drip from black-bough trees.
Continents drift. Moroseness has a certain chemistry
when it comes to eating disorders.
I’ve often dated people in my life who I think
would rather die than be vulnerable. Ex:
The farmer meets in the middle of the earth
a shaky lump of fur before his plough.
He steps aside and moseys on.
—The Friend
