Eulogy for a Living Mouse

At 10 p.m. the shrieking song began

in a crevice in the kitchen

bookended by the sound of clicking wood

I found myself a child again,

God’s hammer in hand, only to reject

the complex

unwanted, again

confronted with the existential braid

to face hubris

to equate size to supremacy

as though the moth, the toad, the mouse

is worse than I for being unlike myself

for living of the Earth and not placing one above it

at night I became smaller

submerged by domination in a white world,

man’s world

knowing I am not truly that

nor am I the mouse

or the stolen dirt

instead, I am the person with the plastic bag

standing over the helpless thing,

debating my conscience

until suddenly we are both free

it, fleeing beneath the wastelands of my refrigerator

and I, shaking and unencumbered

the divine soul encased in skin and a name

too big and yet too small to be a reaper