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.

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