The biggest beast
Theo LeGro

Cat standing sentry by the gap in the wall,
I spend an hour peeling half a mouse off
the floor, lifting coins of blood from the hard-
wood with a wet rag. I can’t find the rest, feel guilty
for double bagging what I do find and throwing
it in the trash. Can you be too old to give a mouse
a funeral? I do it anyway, praying over the garbage
can, three joss sticks smoking between my palms.
I beg the ancestors to reunite him with his legs
somewhere safe and bountiful. I tell the cat
well done and give her a treat. Death distills us
to our basest gestures: the cat preys, the mouse
plays dead until it’s no longer playing, and
the biggest beast rewards the cat for doing
no less than evolution demands, pours a drink
and weeps for a lung lighter than a lotus seed,
a heart even smaller, no less a heart, gone still
and gray and weightless in the dustpan.

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