Infestation
The mice are back,
leaving a vile confetti
of white flour and droppings.
Stink bugs plunge
from ceilings, and I
carefully carry them outside
until a friend scolds me—
they are a scourge to crops
—as if she’s a farmer.
Infected with resentment,
I inventory friends:
who is abiding,
who has forsaken,
who is greening,
who is beyond salvage?
I count and sort
like a scavenger looking
for sustenance in a famine,
no better than the mice
at home in my house
with their small hungers.
Robin Dellabough‘s debut collection, Double Helix (2022), includes a Pushcart Prize-nominated poem. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Rattle, Gyroscope, Yellow Arrow, Stoneboat, Halfway Down the Stairs, Mom Egg Review, Blue Unicorn, Negative Capability, and other publications and anthologies.
