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āFor Henry, Who Has Just Gone
Henry was my pet rat, and he died
last night in my hands. He was three
years old, which is way longer than
an albino rat is supposed to live. To be
honest, he wasnāt a very smart animal,
but he was so sweet that now I wonder
if intelligence has anything to do
with leading a good life. He had been sick
for a few months, and every twelve hours
I had to apply antiseptic and lotion
to both his back feet. By the end
they didnāt really work anymore,
so he would just drag his feet behind him in a way
so cute and sad that I started calling him my little
sea lion. When he died it was, somehow,
a surprise: you would think that when your rat
is older than older than dirt and has been sick for months
youād be sort of prepared: after I had laid out the towel
and mixed the solution, I picked him
up and noticed his breathing
was s slow. I lay down with him
on the towel, the towel where weād spent
the last few months, where I think we
finally, really, completely loved each other,
not like humans do: humans always want
something from you and he and I
would rather just be together than apart,
and I pulled him toward me, and he chittered in that way
that always meant he was wind coming in after a rain,
his head fell forward, and there was so much less
light in the room. The lamp was so far away,
like the light of a house to which there is no
road. I know, he was just a rat. So many
just like him, all white, red eyes,
die every day and only one or two people
in white coats are even there to see it.
He was all in white, he was always there
to see me. When I would wake from a nightmare,
so many nightmares, I would turn on the light
and there he was, holding on, a constant companion
to a prisoner, the prison being the apartment,
the world being inside his cage. Once I was crying
in bed because of who knows why, and he sat beside
my face and licked my tears away. I had a rat
once, named Henry. Named Buddy. Named Mr. Big
Mouse. Named proof that something could need me
and still love me. Named please
can I have some of your apple? Or I know
youāre sad but Iām hungry. Donāt go; if you go
I wonāt survive: a child reaches for her father;
a couple, buried in ash, dies holding each other;
a man and a woman in an office, crying slightly,
sign sheets of paper; sparrows fall out of the sky together.
Some day Iām going to have a child. Sheās going to have
eyes like mine and such small hands. Just like
sheāll need me alive then, she needs me alive
now; I canāt say goodbye before Iāve had a chance
to say hello. I donāt stare off bridges anymore.
I donāt count out little blue exit signs and even today,
with Henry buried under a tree, a tree somewhere so far away
it feels like someone else buried him using my body,
today I came home and only wanted to sleep
for twenty minutes instead of always. Something needed
me once, and I know something will need me
again. One day Iām going to have a daughter.
Sheās going to sleep through the night
sometimes. She is a light on a rock
at the edge of a lonely see. You see that light
out there? Thatās where Iām headed. Thatās home.ā
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
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