Rattus (poem)
Rattus
Intuition, extra sense, if you like
Déjà-vu in a prototypic vermin mind
We are having telepathic conversation
Embracing sight’s elusive romance
(To be a genius. To be not at fault for this.)
How are we going to solve a problem?
Working backwards from the outcome
The treat is hidden in the maze
We flash a picture and map the brain’s
Response…now every day for weeks
Rattus follows a rat’s routine
And if he were a little man, in workaday jeans
We would astonish him
A prescient rat
He would begin to take a foolish pride
Preen on himself, a gifted rat
An oracular, omniscient rat
A tightrope walker over a gorge of teeming
Alternative realities
Infected with the certainty of vision
He bumps his snout and rises on his hind legs
Rattus
Uncollected Poems
(2017, Stephanie Foster)