On the day we found the mouse in the bath,
I wanted to call the police.
Just in case there was any suspicion of wrongdoing.
He was so small that at first
I thought he was the shadow of the plug.
In the end we scooped him up with a bit of card.
His chest still faintly moving,
we laid him gently on the bin in the yard.
It seemed impossible to me that if I had held him
squirming,
tail whipping about my wrists
and flattened my palms until he stilled,
there would be no retribution.
Today I remembered that.
And I wondered why I had not picked up the phone for me.
Rachel Simons is a Welsh writer and artist. She grew up near the sea but now uses Roath Park Lake to get her fix of water-watching. By day, she works in the voluntary sector with people who are homeless or vulnerably housed.
Eunoia Review 