Rats
In Israel, teeth sharp as guillotines,
you have learned to open pine cones in a spiral.
Threadbare virtuosos, but you are
rarely seen outside the interest
of experimenters and odd Israeli ecologists.
In my chookpen your wispy body is mobile.
Back arched you are attenuated and
as though pursued by rat histories
narrow tunnel,
you scamper under an invisible seine,
which floats just out of reach of the black plague.
Morsels of food destined for the slender places
in your gangling subways.
In the laboratory there is no earth.
You have no solid floor, just metal grates
like layers of neatly suspended cake trays.
