Armored Mouse Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

As I make
a dive into sheets
and blankets
on a cold night,

this armored mouse
carrying
needles of light

sticking out
from the blazing skies
of its eyes,

shoots another
gaze at me.

The mouse's peek
is transfixed
by a sharp rolled-out

stiff thread of lightning
from my planted
gaze and flashy winks.

(ii)

A war of glances
and peeks
between the mouse
and me.

A storm
of darted
stares
in a typhoon
of wriggles

from me
stretching out
my hand for a rod,
as the mouse
weaves me

into its blanket
of peeps
and windy squeaks.

(iii)

I turn on
fluorescent bulbs
for downpours
of light

to seal the mouse's
torch eyes,

but the dwarf
animal shrugs off
light with its eyes

on both ends
of a bobbing seesaw.

(iv)

I lose the battle,
the mouse
fleeing on a jet's
flight with dribbling

peeps and peeks
from a hiding corner's
hole drilled
into forts behind

thick door curtains
and window blinds
drilling tubular

holes and pipes
for the mouse's
fortress, its armor

peeps and peeks
stitched into
slithering squeaks

under a shower
of fluorescent light
with no tightened
fist for a knock-out strike,

as the mouse
knocks me out
into a slithering sleep

drowning me
down a stroking
waterfall
of deep snores.