Clifford
the small, dead mouse
by Marjorie Wisler
All the time I was
suffocating mortal mice to
spare their destined demise by way of
under-bellies held fast to
a tray of some chemical
securing agent.
I would watch their breath quicken
carefully sealed plastic-wrap transforming to a
one-dimensional kaleidoscope of
condensation with each
fervent exhalation.
Labored vocalizations and with
eyeballs popping from adhered sockets
they would die calmly and
quietly while through a reflective film I
caressed and
calmed them.
The last died differently, and,
altered he was to a
black labyrinth, a
breeding ground.
When I saw his
hollowed corpse, once
stuck fast to
my Grandmother’s golden wood floor, I
started with surprise before
kneeling with sadistic curiosity. I
cannot escape from my mind the sight of that
frozen cadaver, last moments
rendered temporarily in a hairy, flattened
carbon cast.
A cold intake swelled as I
lifted the chip half-mast to find wrinkled black
open craters ejecting
pearlescent crescents noisily
flipping to the golden wood floor below,
becoming one
writhing cluster of transportive larvae.
The communal jostle had sent his
solidified casing from hiding
to the
exposing electric lights and the peripheral of
my photographic eyes, now calmly
popping from intact
Unsecured sockets.
About the Author
Marjorie Wisler is a musician, teacher, and writer from the MidWest.