Hello

Some nights the rat with pointed teeth makes his long way back to the bowl of peaches. He stands on the dining room table sinking his tooth drinking the pulp of each fruity turned-up face knowing you will read this message and scream. It is his only text, to take and take in darkness, to be gone before you awaken and your giant feet start creaking the floor. Where is the mother of the rat? The father, the shredded nest, which breath were we taking when the rat was born, when he lifted his shivering snout to rafter and rivet and stone? I gave him the names of the devil, seared and screeching names, I would not enter those rooms without a stick to guide me, I leaned on the light, shuddering, and the moist earth under the house, the trailing tails of clouds, said he was in the closet, the drawer of candles, his nose was a wick. How would we live together with our sad shoes and hideouts, our lock on the door and his delicate fingered paws that could clutch and grip, his blank slate of fur and the pillow where we press our faces? The bed that was a boat is sinking. And the shores of morning loom up lined with little shadows, things we never wanted to be, or meet, and all the rats are waving hello.