I saw this poem in Poetry Daily a few weeks ago. I love especially the lines “For you / have been the sand to your own blaze.” It says so much, so efficiently. Larry did a broadside of Adam Zagajewski’s poem, “R says,” about literary rats a few years ago, that had this line drawing by Roberto Chavez. It goes pretty well with this poem, too.
Rats
For your cities, thank you. For your
big noise. For the rain-glossed, thin-skinned
bags of food. For the tunnels, the candy-
pink shell of your walls that we map
by feel, by oilsmear, around you, the richest
place in your house. For poison blunted,
your undersink arsenal defused and dead
by overuse, by you. Thank you. For you
have been the sand to your own blaze.
For you have been a gentle sentinel,
letting us slip in around you,
cryptic, slick. This is what
we hope you’ll take in for your pains:
we’ll stay, I promise, by your side
at every step, like the guns
you love to use till they’re
empty: click click.