My mother-- preferring the strange to the tame: br Dove-note, bone marrow, deer dung, br Frog's belly distended with finny young, br Leaf-mould wilderness, hare-bell, toadstool, br Odd, small snakes loving through the leaves, br Metallic beetles rambling over stones: all br Wild and natural -flashed out her instinctive love, br and quick, she br Picked up the fluttering. bleeding bat the cat laid at her feet, br And held the little horror to the mirror, where br He gazed on himself and shrieked like an old screen door br far off. br br Depended from her pinched thumb, each wing br Came clattering down like a small black shutter. br Still tranquil, she began, "It's rather sweet..." br The soft mouse body, the hard feral glint br In the caught eyes. Then we saw br And recoiled: lice, pallid, yellow, br Nested within the wing-pits, cozily sucked and snoozed, br The thing dropped from her hands, and with its thud, br Swiftly, the cat with a clean careful mouth br Closed on the soiled webs, growling, took them out to the back stoop. br br But still, dark blood, a sticky puddle on the floor br Remained, of all my my mother's tender, wounding passion br For a whole wild, lost, betrayed and secret life br Among its dens and burrows, its clean stones, br Whose denizens can turn upon the world br With spitting tongue, an odor, talon, claw br To sting or soil benevolence, alien br As our clumsy traps, our random scatter of shot, br She swept to the kitchen. Turning on the tap, br She washed and washed the pity from her hands.