Cat and Mouse - a poem

Cat and Mouse

by Susan Paczek


Beepbeep the cat looks from left to right
Scanning her prey that's frozen with fright

Here on the kitchen floor of my house
Is a real-life game of cat and mouse

The mouse has earned my sympathy
"It's doomed" I think, nowhere to flee

His dark eyes glisten, he sits in stillness
I assume this ends in a bloody mess

The cat is waiting for the mouse to go
To sink in a claw with her first blow

But before she can claim her prize to keep
With unseen force, the mouse makes a leap

He launches himself towards the wall
And through a crack to the basement hall

Where he can find his nest and tell his wife
How lucky he is to have kept his life:

"If I had stayed put I would have died!
But I took a leap! Thank God I tried!"

Beepbeep - photo by Brendan Labelle