The smell of mice is one I’ve learned well.

The stench of ammonia and adamant nuisance,

And they are back.

Not in the glovebox, nor under the hood,

This time, in the trunk.

So started another effort of extermination.

Oddly bent, as if kneeling, peering up, as if praying,

I crawled into the tunnel. Within a little hole, 

Was a tuft of brown fur, a brittle line of bone.

A rotted, dead pest, wrapped in its nest.

I tried to out the damn thing, and though out not it came,

it budged all the same.

A mess of dried flesh, a corpse congealed,

It was fetal, the thing was crowning.

I faced the brain,

marred with fissures and cavities,

Still, it remained.

To get the creature out was a futile chore,

Too fragile to tear free, too crooked to coax,

It was enduring. 

So we sat in a stalemate.

Two stubborn souls,

Two like minds,

Crumbling.

When did I become so? 

When did fog replace cognitive function? 

When did voids fill recall?

Two like minds, 

Dredging.

When did I start sleeping to survive? 

The fifteen hour naps, the euphoric escape of unconsciousness,

The release from the relentless being,

                                                       being, 

                                                                  being—

Two tenacious minds,

Persisting.

Perhaps only remaining, 

Despite the decay.

Again, I am conquered.

No eyes there to see, the brain held my gaze

As if it could say,

“I'm not going yet.”