Earthling

A poem for you today for ✨no particular reason✨

EARTHLING

Don’t tell my landlord
I rescued a mouse
from the barncat’s mouth.
Or at least I tried, got him
a chance to get away. I nearly
stepped on him in the process,
he was so hard to find
in the grass, and so small.
I didn’t see where he went,
but I coaxed the cat up the drive just in case.

This morning I woke at six
to the sound of clicking in my kitchen:
a fat mouse chewing at the gate
of the catch-and-release we set last night.
When I lifted the trap to the light the mouse
pressed her nose against its wall. She looked
at me and I swear I could hear her
feeling: please, get me out of this predicament!
This morning I left the house at six-oh-five
and drove her to another wood
and set her free.

Last year there was a blizzard that began
the day I caught the very last one of like two-
dozen mice that found birdseed
in our closet, moved in and made
a mouse-palace of the place.
What do you think I should have done?
Tossed her out to freeze?
I gave her a box of paper cuttings
and towel tubes. I brought her walnuts
and water. I fed her blueberries.
We waited together for the melt.

When I was diagnosed autistic,
I learned it worked to say I feel like an alien,
the explanation normal people seem to understand.
But it isn’t strictly true.
I feel rather like you are an alien.
I am friends, after all, with the mice in my kitchen.
What are you doing here?