Blunted Night

by Allen Fowler

Mice thwart their teeth with what wood holds in the walls,
answer to a boning itch, question to a witnessing ear.
Poison has been wedged at junctures of likely passage or pause,
to no avail, no avail,
no silencing stretches into sleep.

Even as directed thought ends, thinking,
even as thought concedes to not,
sleep is, hobbled by persistence, such.
tooth blunted
need rented
night