Almanac Poetry: ‘Mouse’ – Tommy Mallet

 

 

 

Mouse

 

Hard rain clouds billow under a full moon, framing it,
each giving the other power,
as I pull over near 2am,
to write,
in a paddock gateway, before
the breathy sighs of a mostly sleeping wife
help drag my body down.

 

Here, I contemplate if I’m alive.

 

How did I survive,
yet again,
long winding roads,
drunk,
to be near home?

 

A barn owl calls
to another two ridges away,
conversations carried by
still air and gully echoes.
Maybe I died,
and this moment is
just the memory, the stubbornness.

 

What if I crashed this time,
last time,
any of the times,
on these backwater mountain logging tracks,
and everything is a lie?

 

Glorious frog song from the nearest dam
fills the open ute window,
green bastards everywhere, trying
to get laid.

 

Surely,
if I hadn’t made it, the illusion, the denial,
would not have lasted past the next time
I drunk drove.
The loop of it, pointless,
would have seen me undone.

 

In my still,
the smallest mouse appears,
and is gone.

 

I briefly contemplate science,
how it’s driven by math,
but, at its core
demands imagination,
as much as it does futility,

 

before making my way, that last
200 metres home,

 

walking in,
a thing lit silver, free,

 

to shadows,
and love.

 

 

 

 

More poetry from Tommy Mallet can be read Here.

 

 

More poetry from Almanac Poetry can be read HERE

 

 

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