Certain Homes in Certain Towns at the End of the World

There is a room where the house cricket

has her own small desk and a tidy, open notebook.

She is welcome to sit there all day if she likes,

not humming, not writing a word.

There are similar rooms

for the flies.

Rooms for the field mice come in from the fields.

Rooms for the moths, rooms for the lice.

A single bookshelf holds whole colonies of vermin.

A single windowsill, a million lives.

In this house, the cat settles on the sofa

and strokes his own ears.

His fleas.  His fleas' remembrances.

Ah, his fleas' regrets.