A Mouse's Persistence Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Through
a pitch-crow
lane
in the onyx
space of night,

the mouse
shoots its way

along
like a ground
level bullet

fired to cruise,
floating
on hairs

and other gossamer
floor grasses
to my room,

lighting up
my bedside with
bright rays
from its eyes,

rolling
moonstones,
as it creeps
through
its tunnel.

(ii)

Riding the breadth
of its strip
on quiet
gliding wheels

of short feet
buried beneath
its fur
to float and swim
through

a floor's tight-lipped
taupe air
hooking the animal
to the ground,

stapling it firm,
as it pauses,
quivering
in spinning helices

of its heart beat
swelling
and denting its chest.

(iii)

The feather-
light gray
brown cotton
ball
bounces on,

kicking itself
along,
as it dribbles

past steel
and silver wires
of stretching air,

charcoal, slate
and soot
shades of deep
and shallow

tones
of a zigzagging
animal
along
a narrow path

tracked by sharp
daisy
and alabaster
arrows of light

flipped out
by the flying
and spiraling rays
of my policing
dancing torch.

(iv)

Spreading
its wings
of light,
as the beast
gets lost

for a century-
stretchy
minute until
I spot it

melting off
beneath
a widened crack
of a door

my elastic eyes
don't catch,
as it unlocks
the key
to its home
of slither-and-glide-off.

Rounds of light-
pointed arrows
pierce
the beast again
and again,

but it keeps
on returning,
swallowing me with
my cruising sleep.