A Mouse's Sneeze

Imagine a shopping center parking lot lined from one end to the other with closely-spaced set mousetraps...you know, the old-fashioned little wooden rectangle with the tension-triggered steel spring just waiting to snap shut at the slightest touch. My mind is like that parking lot full of mousetraps, and each mousetrap represents a random thought. And somewhere in that vast maze is a tiny mouse with a bad cold. Every time he sneezes, a thought is released with a loud "snap".

I'm sure there are subtle factors which tickle the mouse's whiskers...in this case the too-recent death of my friend Norm. But whatever the cause, the mouse just sneezed and triggered the memory of my...what word?..."partner," Ray, dead nearly 20 years now, of alcoholism-related AIDS. For some reason, I never allowed myself to properly grieve for him, but I did write a poem to him. I rather like it, and see some similarities to my relationship with Norm when we first met so very many years ago. I hope you don't mind my sharing it with you here. It's called...

Playmates

My heart is a toybox,
too eagerly shared.
It holds a random collection
of toy-soldier-brave hopes
and once fire-engine-bright dreams
with the paint chipped off,
and the fragile shells of unfulfilled wishes
which, when held to the ear,
echo the sea-sounds of my soul.

I’ve offered my toys to many:
“They’re ugly!” I’ve been told—
though to me, because they are mine,
they are precious.
I could never understand
why others did not find them so.
And frightened and alone,
I’d go on to the next.

And then you stumbled into my life,
little-boy kind,
with your own little box of toys
even more battered than my own.
Shy, we spread our toys on the ground,
and each saw in the other’s joys
wondrous bits and pieces and sparkly things
that we could use to build a wall
against the world.

But because we are sometimes frightened,
and because we do not always see
the same things in the same way,
we each may be tempted
to pick up our toys and move on—
even knowing that what we have together
will probably never happen again
in all the rest of our lives.

So let us sit together,
and play.
Not just for a while,
but until it is time
for us to go.

Perhaps if I offered the mouse a tiny box of tissues?

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.