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States of Poetry 2016 - New South Wales | 'Mouse (Wunderkammer)' by Kate Middleton

by
States of Poetry New South Wales - Series One

States of Poetry 2016 - New South Wales | 'Mouse (Wunderkammer)' by Kate Middleton

by
States of Poetry New South Wales - Series One

Cut out a sixth of the heart.
At a day old—furless,
close-eyed, resembling nothing
so much as an infant's thumb—
he can survive it.
The mouse can regrow that missing part
in three short weeks.

Aesop knew it:
to be mouse-hearted
is as good as wearing
the swagger of lion.

His heart
perhaps the size of a Lilliputian walnut.
Barely a mouse, already
ripped apart.
He does not wait
for a Godhand to put him back together.
Alone he blindly furrows toward wholeness.

 

Kate Middleton

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