Searching for pillowcases trimmed  
with lace that my mother-in-law
once made, I open the chest of drawers   
upstairs to find that mice
have chewed the blue and white linen   
dishtowels to make their nest,
and bedded themselves
among embroidered dresser scarves   
and fingertip towels.

Tufts of fibers, droppings like black   
caraway seeds, and the stains of birth   
and afterbirth give off the strong   
unforgettable attar of mouse
that permeates an old farmhouse   
on humid summer days.

A couple of hickory nuts
roll around as I lift out
the linens, while a hail of black
sunflower shells
falls on the pillowcases,
yellow with age, but intact.

I’ll bleach them and hang them in the sun   
to dry. There’s almost no one left
who knows how to crochet lace….   

The bright-eyed squatters are not here.   
They’ve scuttled out to the fields   
for summer, as they scuttled in
for winter—along the wall, from chair   
to skirted chair, making themselves   
flat and scarce while the cat
dozed with her paws in the air,
and we read the mail
or evening paper, unaware.
~Jane Kenyon, “Not Here” from Collected Poems

1

In a shoe box stuffed in an old nylon stocking
Sleeps the baby mouse I found in the meadow,
Where he trembled and shook beneath a stick
Till I caught him up by the tail and brought him in,
Cradled in my hand,
A little quaker, the whole body of him trembling,
His absurd whiskers sticking out like a cartoon-mouse,
His feet like small leaves,
Little lizard-feet,
Whitish and spread wide when he tried to struggle away,
Wriggling like a minuscule puppy.

Now he’s eaten his three kinds of cheese and drunk from his
bottle-cap watering-trough—
So much he just lies in one corner,
His tail curled under him, his belly big
As his head; his bat-like ears
Twitching, tilting toward the least sound.

Do I imagine he no longer trembles
When I come close to him?
He seems no longer to tremble.

2

But this morning the shoe-box house on the back porch is empty.
Where has he gone, my meadow mouse,
My thumb of a child that nuzzled in my palm? —
To run under the hawk’s wing,
Under the eye of the great owl watching from the elm-tree,
To live by courtesy of the shrike, the snake, the tom-cat.
I think of the nestling fallen into the deep grass,
The turtle gasping in the dusty rubble of the highway,
The paralytic stunned in the tub, and the water rising,—
All things innocent, hapless, forsaken.
~Theodore Roethke “The Meadow Mouse”

Let us walk in the woods, says the cat.
I’ll teach you to read the tabloid of scents,
to fade into shadow, wait like a trap, to hunt.
Now I lay this plump warm mouse on your mat.
~Marge Piercy from “The Cat’s Song”

Our autumn house guests returned this week. They don’t tend to announce themselves; they prefer to creep in silently when we’re unaware, usually in the dark of the night, using whatever portal I haven’t plugged thoroughly enough with steel wool.

They leave for the summer, happier camping outside. Once the nights start feeling chilly, we might spot them out of the corner of our eye, scooting across the kitchen floor searching for any crumbs from dinner. I open the cupboard under the sink and see the evidence they surreptitiously have been back in residence for some time.

I’ve found their indoor camps in closets, and in storage boxes. They like to bring their outdoor treasures with them.

Our farm cats have been asleep at the wheel – they are supposed to be guarding all potential entry points. Yet these wee scuttlers got past them.

So I resort to primitive rodent control, traps baited with peanut butter and wait to hear the tell-tale snap of the spring. Instead, the bait is gone the next morning, with no furry body and no evidence of bloodshed. These are clever little scuttlers.

It is hard to outwit a smart mouse, and of course if one mouse is caught, there are at least thirty of its buddies yet to be caught.

Between the cats and the mice, the farm cats prove most wily. They pick their hapless victims at random, knowing they have job security as long as they allow only a few mice access to the house. Every few days, they leave scattered dissected mouse parts on the front porch to make a grisly impression, just to prove they, better than me, still know how to catch a mouse.