Bleaching a Mouse

Bleaching A Mouse

You will need:
1 mop bucket, yellow, £2.50.
1 litre of bleach, cheap brand, 29p.
1 carving knife,
1 mallet,
1 torch:
for defence.
1 broom head, in the bucket for no purpose.
1 box Twinings Peppermint tea,
in bucket because mouse is suspected of being in cupboard.
You.
1 mouse.
1 kettle, with water supply.


Oh don’t you look sweet,
all field mouse brown, with your ‘ickle paws,
though I note that this effort of friendship
comes only after you have tried escape: and failed.
No more the noisesome shadow,
no more the piss machine, laying out your trails.

But, of course, it is all a little show,
since you have only two thoughts, flight or hide.
Flight has failed, so hide you must:
behind the tea box you leap, saving me the trouble
of stabbing or smashing: handing me the dice.
Thank you: bleach has always been my weapon.

The scrabbling is sporadic, no more the tan brown sweetness,
only a verminous black getting lower up the bucket,
until semi consciousness in chlorine.
The boiling water reacts, melting a till receipt,
fizzing, crepitus like Cava: almost as a sweet.
Snow white you lay in the weeds.