It was a small death
silently met
in a warm night.
Morning came
with a sad mouth
telling a truth
we did not need
in our busy home.
Run out of time
on the scurrying wheel,
he no longer hid
his head or burrowed
under the papery
shavings, curled
plump from the real
hardness of light,
but, humped, lay
lost as a cry
in the wide cage.
One comes to expect
no less of fate
than Finis. It
is a turned page,
a different pledge.
Robin Skelton
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/death-of-a-mouse/
