"An Old Story," Mark Kraushaar

[switchercat.livejournal.com]

From Kraushaar's book Falling Brick Kills Local Man, 2009, University of Wisconsin Press.

Once there was a weary farmer
and his nervous wife.
Picture their leaking roof and downer cows,
and consider their flooded fields and ruined corn.
There'd been his cheating
and her temper and even the boy
(not his) just six, and how
she wouldn't control him.
Now one night she was basting a goose
when three mice crossed the kitchen
and climbed over the stove.
It was odd—as far as blind mice go,
as far as any mice, you never saw such a sight
in your life, not the red-tipped canes,
not the little tin cups.
Not only that.
( She said these mice love jazz music. )