It’s as if a mouse is hiding — in wait every day

for me to do the gardening –– then jumps nine

steps, vaulting the door frame into the kitchen.

On those nights, I catch one in a humane trap.

This might be a coincidence, but it is not

the same mouse –– except for that time

I carried one to the compost heap for a treat

which it clearly regarded as a day-excursion.

Now I take them up the road to World Peace Gardens 

in the hope –– up the road –– they find solace

perhaps even a greater sense of purpose

than the creamed hazelnut mix at the end

of a plastic tunnel. Maybe this is what’s meant

by a humane trap –– making the same mistakes

but with refined effort. That much I know

having trampled many criss-crossed paths

filled with plenty –– of sex, drugs & ice cream.

Every time I tend my garden, I juggle with

death but in search of bread, perhaps

like the mouse, or maybe mice prefer to eat

the hearts of seeds, leaving husks like skeletons

for pigeons to pick over. I favour different avian                  

visitors, even yearn for flashes of jay & a robin

to bring back my dead, remind me to live outside

a plastic tunnel, watching nature pass me by.