I have been carrying a small mouse
in my pocket for more than a week.
I found him on my kitchen table,
so hungry he let me pick him up.
Our friendship began when I fed
him. He sleeps most of the time
and sometimes I even forget he
is with me. But then he moves.
I reach into my pocket and pet
him and give him a seed or a small
piece of cheese. We have become,
you might say, good friends. We
share things and are always, I
think, glad to be with one another.
When I take him home at night
and put him on the table, he looks
all around, as if he’s not sure
he’s been there before. At night
he sleeps in my old baseball glove,
moving from one finger to the other.
William Virgil Davis’s most recent book of poetry, his sixth, is Dismantlements of Silence: Poems Selected and New (2015). His first book, One Way to Reconstruct the Scene, won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize. His poetry has been published widely and worldwide.
Header image based on Giacinto Capelli's “Mouse” (1937) from the National Gallery of Art
