Dave Chandler
A Rat
I know rats first hand—claw marks on donated blocks of cheese, flesh torn from a child’s ear, a pet maimed by ripping teeth. Clinging to the dark, rats follow trails of their own urine.
In the crawl space under my two-flat, the handyman and I soak marshmallows in antifreeze and stuff them into a burrow. When the rats eat them, their guts will swell up and burst. We chortle at the thought.
In a city park, my Tai Chi class stops hushed when a huge rat waddles out from a flowerbed, looks up at the sky and dies.
craving one bright moment's kiss of the sun
About the Author
For years Dave Chandler has enjoyed reading poetry based on Japanese models. Since his recent retirement from managing social service and economic development programs, He has made writing poetry an avocation. His writing travels with him and his wife, Mary, between the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago and the Driftless region of Wisconsin