And in case they don’t work, says my landlord
about the peanut-butter baited no-kill traps
under the sink & beside the laundry, there’s always
the snap-traps, more humane than poison, no
suffering—there’s even a kind where you don’t see
the mouse—it goes in the tunnel, a sensor comes on
to say the trap is full, & you just toss the whole tube.
You don’t have to know what happened inside—it’s just
dead by magic! But this last month, I know what’s happened,
& who & when, perhaps even the minute thanks to
Reema’s dead-of-night goodbye text, & I’ve accepted
there is no why with any meaning, not when
her last post packed so much gratitude one would think
it were a graduation announcement, not a
suicide note, not when the funeral home packed
family & friends in standing-room-only around
the closed-lid coffin, gray as a mouse. Now I lack
only two of the journalist questions, & I keep waiting
for a coworker or student or local newswriter
to give me the where and how of a February night
far below freezing. I suppose it was death
by magic: the voices rammed against the walls
of her brain, & right as she was clicking post, send,
she heard a five-a.m. knock at the door & got up
from her bedroom desk, walked the long hall,
& unlatched the front door, & waiting outside
like a hot pizza, like a friend’s idling engine,
it was there: the mouse-gray coffin, open,
a soft pillow, a strawberry boba tea,
a mochi donut with little candy bits on top,
& she climbed over the lip & punctured
the plastic seal with the pointed straw,
stirring up all the tapioca pearls, & she
broke the donut in half to get right
to the sweetest part, & the coffin closed,
& a little sensor came on, & like the last wave
of a choir director’s hand, all at once
the voices went dark.
Dr. T. Dallas Saylor (he/they) holds a PhD from Florida State University and an MFA from the University of Houston. His work meditates on the body, especially gender and sexuality, against physical, spiritual, and digital landscapes. He currently lives in Denver, CO. He is the author of one poetry collection entitled Starfish, published by Glass Lyre Press in 2025, & his work is on Twitter: @dallas_saylor.
