A Poem for Today: The Mousetrap

The box fan at my feet

hums to mask the scraping

and screeches that awake.

Still, at three, my mind snaps

open, it’s a mousetrap-

my gut blooms, it’s a sponge

corner in the dirty

dishwater: forgotten,

filmy, sick, cold, greasy.

Fresh chill from the single

paned window draws inside,

I reach myself out wide,

far from where the day’s plea

becomes one for mercy

or else a eulogy.

In just an hour or so,

the stone will be rolled from

this blinking, twilit time

and my thumbs will not prick.

In just a gasp or two,

I’ll fall instep, inhale,

exhale, to the rhythm

of the rock beside me.

What is it I’ve come here

to do? Perhaps just breathe.