Pastoral on the Invention of Screaming
Two mice
in the traps
this morning—
One of them
with just a paw
in the trap’s maw—
Do I really have to
tell you now
what I did
with my boot?
Rural lack of
sentimentality,
the laptop-class
might say. Yuh,
well, rural lack
of a lotta things,
bud. But I weary
now of feeding
it to them, that
sugary cereal box I
keep reaching for
at times
like these
(one eye,
you know,
shoots out
on impact)—
Cartoons never
exaggerated so much
as added sound effects
because after all,
the silence afterwards
is the hardest part
of watching. I mean,
that’s why screaming
was invented—
Benjamin Aleshire is a poet and photographer from rural Vermont. For many years he made his living by traveling the world with a manual typewriter and composing poems for strangers in the street. His writing has appeared in The Times of London, Iowa Review, Southern Review, and Lit Hub. POEMS FOR BYSTANDERS, his debut manuscript, has been a finalist for prizes from Alice James, Sarabande, and Four Way Books.