I’m only a mouse

in the chocolate chip cookies

but I make enough racket

to awaken the dead.

As I scrabble and scratch,

gnawing and chewing.

Which wakes up the people

asleep in the bed.

 

As I knock over drink cans,

rattle the glasses,

jangle a tea spoon

or fall in the tub.

I scamper and scurry

to get at the package

that calls like a Siren

to my yearning taste buds.

 

I try to be quiet

but the problem with paper

is it rustles and rattles,

as it puts up a fight.

And I must have a cookie,

with chocolate chips in it.

‘Cos a mouse can get frantic

for that very first bite.

 

They think I’m a monster,

a tiger, a cougar,

a man eating spider,

a sinuous snake,

a villain, a raccoon,

a vampire, a grizzly.

a wild boar, a hippo,

or a massive earth quake.

 

But its just little me,

in the chocolate chip cookies.

That they left on the counter,

when they put out the light.

And I’ll try not to wake them

but It’s really a problem,

for a ravenous rodent

in the dead of the night.

 

 

 

David Garlick, Victoria, August, 1991

 

For Dick and Jeanne Cavaye, in their trailer on Pender Island.