Ada Limon
But everyone is busted a little.
No consciousness of the breaking, just the
history
of a dirty footprint—even the easy
stuff,
the small conversations about our worth.
(To be an anonymous object,
the innocuous heart, the smallest part of
flesh.)
On Withers Avenue, a rat circled the bottom of
a trashcan,
it threw its body against the plastic green
walls of its new world,
I heard it. I removed the top. I put the top
back on.
(Small brilliant hole in the dark, let me
out.)
Standing, in what seemed ridiculously human
clothes,
I argued with the rat. I asked him,
Are you rabid?
Are you crazy?
Are you responsible for the plague?
He didnŐt answer, he threw his body again.
Are you mean?
Did you hurt your children?
Did you hurt anyone?
I want to tell you that I let that rat out.
Kindness overwhelmed the tough pout of
people-cleanliness.
I want to tell you I put him in a shoebox and
brought him to the country, fed him corn and
taught him to read.
(Ungettable parallel time, fathomless
choices.)
I say to a stranger, I am harmless.
But the word doesnŐt seem right. I have been
harmed,
but I do not wish to do harm, but I could do
harm,
I am not without desire.
I want to tell you the rat moved in with me,
made a good living.
But, I tell you, I let him be.
I think he might have managed to release
himself,
he was not harmless. He had intent. Flirting
with the world.
HeŐll show up one day, long-wandered in the
weather.
He just needed someone subversive to bend in
real close and say,
You can bristle all you want,
you can reinvent the shout,
but you got your rat-self in there,
now, get your cunning rat-self out.
In this particular holler, the cherry trees
weave over the river's fountain, full bloom.
A swallow seems to dive into the sky, a crown
of blossoms on its birdly head, a razor beak,
cutting into the soft world. At this holler,
there
is a silent longing. The boy from across the
highway
comes. He fishes for a long time, hoping not
to
catch a fish, hoping not to grow much older.
He sees the swallow, it is a lovely flittering
thing.
He'd like to catch it and hold it down, to
feel
his own heart beat faster as he watches her
swallow body try to burst from this beauty
and into a fire, into the world he doesn't
believe
exists, but prays it looks like this
particular holler.