Poems by Karen Kilcup
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In Praise of Mice
by Karen Kilcup
Born in the area that the local Western Abenaki people called Quascacunquen (“best fields to plant” or “perfect cropland for growing [corn]”), Karen grew up in the Merrimack River watershed. She now lives a little farther north in the Piscataqua-Salmon River watershed, surrounded by waterfowl and otters.
Not the caged albino in a lab,
Purina-fed and tortured tester,
measuring the right angles
of its cage, gnawing its own
leg in boredom, but the free
field mouse, scratching studs
over our heads and in our walls
as we lie in the dark trying
to sleep. Resourceful, brash,
he’s ginger with a snowy belly
and darting liquid eyes, can
squeeze through a ruler-thin
slot, a dime-round hole, his
tail a disappearing whip.
However multiple our traps,
he quickly strips them
clean without a snap, knows
that when winter comes
he can always find the grains
and nuts and seeds hidden
in our tall blue cupboards.
© Karen Kilcup