Sarah White

If You Need An Idiom To Describe Events Of 2016

Try I SWALLOWED A RAT
while I was making shepherd’s pie, or HE
SWALLOWED A RAT while he was
working out with weights, or SHE
SWALLOWED A RAT while she hung
undies on the line, or,

while he studied Torah and she, Portuguese
THEY SWALLOWED A RAT and she
yelled “socorro!” but there was no noise
because the claws had compromised
her vocal chords and all the claws,
plus thrashing tails we saw
between her open jaws, were him,
THE RAT OF INFINITE MAYHEM.

Sarah White, since retiring from college French teaching, has studied art and published four collections of poetry and has a fifth, to one who bends my time, forthcoming from Deerbrook Editions.