Zapped rats abounded
on signs behind that house
but never once did we see one.
Zapped, that is.

We kept such watch as we could manage
in those days,
when such hurt kept us
alert to (it seemed)

vaster things:
Heaven, say, which remains
as remote a thought as pain
when pain is gone.

Where do they,
did they,
go,
the zapped rats, I mean,

which must have scorched
and must have screeched
and must have thudded
like hirsute breadfruit

down the darksome alleys
which every morning,
I’m here to tell you,
were clean.

Of rats, I mean.

Funny, as in strange,
that now, out of range
of rats and reason
to watch for them,

it is the signs that jolt
me back: an ecstatic rat
riding a red lightning bolt,
as if inspired to die.

How much of now’s
a touch of never,
a gasp of vastness
like the end of was.

Funny, what I remember:
dawn: two lit, abysmal eyes
meeting mine
amid the prodigal rot.

Funny, as in not.