creatures in the night

ok, so I'm watching one of the Yankee/Twins games--could have been any of the three since they all turned out the same..."the Yankees win....the Yankees wiiiiinnnn...." when Bern yells out to me from our bedroom--across the hall from our TV room (we believe TVs should be on the second floor...) "Luke has a creature!!!"

He's been staring at walls--our cat, Luke--for years, but apparently something came out of one of them and he had it in his mouth. So I chase him down the upstairs hall to the back steps and down through the kitchen into the dining room where he lets the creature go and it it alive, before I can grab it, knowing it is a mouse...tiny at that...he scoops it up in his mouth again and runs up the front stairs to the bedroom and under the bed.

Something vital is happening in the baseball game--but never mind, the Yankees win and the Boston Red Sox players are all home watching or out stalking children--all Red Sox players are pedophiles at their best....

Luke runs under our bed--or, to be precise, our futon...so it is hard to get him. But I grab his tail and drag him out and the mouse runs away behind the dresser. Bern is still yelling but the only thing to do is let Luke catch the creature again, so I go back to the game and Bern goes back to bed, as if she could sleep with a stalking cat and a mouse in the room....

Luke apparently catches the mouse again and leaps onto the be with it because Bern is hysterically shouting--"It's in the bed!!!"

So I go in, grab a shirt and catch the tiny mouse in it and carry it out on the deck and toss it off into the pet graveyard....two dogs, three cats, a rat and a multitude of genuine pigs are buried beyond our deck...

Then I go back to watch Mariano Rivera do what he does in the 9th inning,

The mouse is gone. Luke is still sniffing the bed. The Yankees win. All is well in the world.

WASHING DISHES

I start the dishwasher
during the Yankees game
after she goes to bed.

The dishwasher is stainless steel
and smarter than me--
She is flesh and blood
and also smarter than me.
What a quandary:
a woman
and a machine
both smarter than me.

I empty it after the game
(win or lose)
late in the night sometimes,
especially when they play
on the west coast.

Glasses go in the cubbard
as well as bowls and plates,
cooking dishes in the drawers.
Like base runners,
I line them up.

Cups on the hanger.
Implements: forks, spoons,
knives
all where they belong,
like players in the dugout.

Wiped counters and
water barely dripping
from the faucet--
like the 9th inning.

Now I can sleep.
Having done what little
I do
to make myself
useful
to her.

Home Run.
Walk Off.