Classic Poem

Rat
gnawing the white rabbit deep in sleep
Dark blood pouring out the rabbit cage
Rat gnawing the piglet fallen into the feeding trough
(lumps of flesh just now roasted in the womb
newborns shuddering and fluttering at the first breath of air
chunks of greasy meat
delicious, warm, and, when bitten off, bleeding, lumps)
A rat gnawing a newborn in the cradle
Mommy went to the kitchen to do the dishes
Rat coming in and out of the fresh corpse
just now interred

Rat, never eaten anything that is not stolen

The one who gathered our shadows into a ball and breathed us awake
The one who used to tag along, stealthily between the toes, under the foot fungus
Gulping and devouring, yet even at an escape of deep breath, quickly curling up its tail with a rustle
Hiding behind the security camera, peeping at us copulating every night
The rat boasting that it has seen all the course of hundreds-of-centuries-long evolution,
every day, grinding its teeth that never stop growing

On the other side of our glossy exterior, in between the veins,
beneath the silken skin, within the dark and slick intestines,
under the squeaky living room cabinet, in between the ten wiggling toes,
inside the cranium concealing the thrumming footsteps of rain and wind,
in the darkest nook of my body where not a single ray of light can penetrate,
death's anatomy curled up inside me for decades, and in its abdomen,
the rat
grinding its teeth to bite off ten fingers