The Rat and the Flower Pot</a> <link rel='stylesheet' href='http://arsonism.org/devaney/ndxz-studio/site/sample/style.css' type='text/css' /> </head> <body> <table align="center" width="500"> <tr><td> <h3>The Rat and the Flower Pot</h3> <p> <small><i>after Brenda Coultas</i></small></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><br> <p class="p1">Under the window the broken pot shards,</p> <p class="p1">cactus, and former spry brown rat.</p> <p class="p3"><br></p> <p class="p1">One floor up you remember</p> <p class="p1">it was a rat who said,</p> <p class="p3"><br></p> <p class="p1">"Nothing is easier</p> <p class="p1">For the mind to know</p> <p class="p3"><br></p> <p class="p1">than itself." Odds</p> <p class="p1">of the squirrel offing</p> <p class="p3"><br></p> <p class="p1">the drunk and still,</p> <p class="p1">out the window sill—</p> <p class="p3"><br></p> <p class="p1">you have not wrestled</p> <p class="p1">until you've wrestled the rat.</p> <p class="p3"><br></p> <p class="p1">People keep their mouths and</p> <p class="p1">windows shut. Like records</p> <p class="p3"><br></p> <p class="p1">when they were <i>records</i></p> <p class="p1">and letters <i>letters.</i></p> <p class="p3"><br></p> <p class="p1">Correctional tape and</p> <p class="p1">typewriters will never write</p> <p class="p3"><br></p> <p class="p1">this story. A lust</p> <p class="p1">for the old lurid</p> <p class="p3"><br></p> <p class="p1">images, gravitational pull</p> <p class="p1">now, not even asked.</p> <p class="p3"><br></p> <p class="p1">The mechanics of inner space,</p> <p class="p1">the lapse and the rat</p> <p class="p3"><br></p> <p class="p1">and the rat and the flowerpot.</p> <p class="p1">A great and squandered vanity.</p> <p class="p4"> <br></p> <p><i> Thomas Devaney</i></p> <p class="p4"><br></p> <p class="p4"><br></p> <p class="p4"><br></p> <p class="p4"><br></p> <p class="p4"><br></p> </body> </html>