"Field Mice" by Molly Gaudry
It is like this: there is a family of field mice
a pumpkin patch, a buried glass slipper
and a middle-aged woman who comes
every evening at the stroke of midnight
to press her fingers into the earth and rest
her head on the bulges beneath the soil
where the pumpkins will soon begin to show
and she sobs and screams where are you now,
where are you now, and the field mice quietly
approach, delicately, for she is not the same
person she once was; so they mend her hems
and patch the fabric over her bruised knees and
sing her a song she does not want to hear, but
they are allowed this working luxury so long as
they abide her only rule: do not unearth that slipper,
do not reveal what took her from mice to not-so-nice
prince, who cringes at her every new sign of age and
long ago banished her to live above the palace garage.
"field mice" by Robert Baumann
there are some field mice
that wear glasses
that can’t see.
what should i say next?
one night two
field mice have sex
in Alabama.
their genitals are small
and look similar except
from very close up.
one of the field mice uses
its glasses
to no avail.
‘this feels good,’ says
the field mouse without
glasses. ‘yes,’
says the other.
the net amount of pleasure in the world
is then increased
by an unnoticeable amount.
"field mice" by Daniel Bailey
This poem is about the God-awful joy experienced by field mice
when they consider their place in the genus Apodemus
and the incredible variety and incredible spread of their family
across the globe the field mice can do nothing but laugh hopelessly
which is an experience that I wish to someday recreate
if not in this poem then maybe in another poem that touches
the heart with something like a flower or a blossoming tongue
or maybe I could just sit in the dark and read to you
and I will call you "my little field mouse" because that joy lives within you
and sleeps inside your sleep where you dream of me, I hope
in a dream where someone has stolen your jacket and then you find it
you find it growing out of the blisters on your fingers from playing
too much baseball with your friends in the field where there are mice
and you try hard not to step on them in the outfield you try so hard
"about the field mouse" by Ani Smith
the thing was that the field mouse was living in my foot for a while
he was rather large, having fed well on string cheese and globs of frozen mango yogurt
and so he had to sleep half curled, his puffy mouse cheek pressed against the inside of my ankle
the thing was that the field mouse decided he needed a move up in life
and took up residence in and around my uterus, more comfortable there
wider and very much warmer than the way his tail would freeze against my little toe
the thing was that the field mouse couldn't stay there long term
because i am not a field, clearly
because he is not a mouse, clearly
the thing was that the field mouse felt his eviction now approaching
and started to become depressed
all hours of night pacing from one ovary to the other
all hours of day, snaking around my torso
burrowing in and through my bone and muscle, looking for a permanent place