a mouse burrowed its path into my home. the holes were patched with steel wool and silicon before it found its way back.

how does one define a poetic event?

what follows is an anxious night of overhearing, that is, a state in which the ear is under siege.

home is what we expect to stand still. this lack of movement implies a certain timelessness, perhaps a hermetic enclosure as of a jar of preserves. a sudden intrusion, of a rodent, less so than of an insect that wandered here by mistake, its path oblivious of my dwelling, disturbs the setting and, by setting something in motion, upsets the reliance on linear passage of time.

in a meadow, i might have emptied a husk of wheat and offered its grains to a gray field mouse.

there are animals that don't take possession of their territory.

a friend writes me of a man who threw a live mouse into a bonfire. the mouse escaped and, aflame, ran back into the house. the house burnt down.

fear is a loss of proportions. i recognize, in slight gestures of panic, germs of so-called counterattacks, admitting a comfort in the impermeability of what i call home and which also designates a well-aimed target.