Dark with the Bright
Mary Ann Dimand

After the plague
departed, Hamlin
looked to its cupboards,
swept up countless
mouse turds, found
more ruined grains
and gowns than
there’d been mice,
or so it felt. Bibles
gnawed to apocalypse.
All those dried apples
shreds and poop, all
those potatoes a stinking
mass. They will never
feel clean again. Even
washing the plates,
the floors, the walls,
the picture glass felt
like losing to the horde.

And those blamed
children laughing
in the street—
no help there.

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