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Rethinking Rodentia
He pulls up in his pickup,
the names of rodents written
in an elegant cursive
that scrolls across the driver’s door and around
the tailgate to the passenger side--squirrels, mice, rats,
raccoons, woodchucks, moles, voles,
beavers, gophers, opossums--
enumerating his catalog of services
the way contractors do their retaining walls,
patios, porches, decks, masonry. This man
specializes in Rodentia. I found him
under Squirrels. I have squirrels under
my roof, squirrels in my walls, squirrels
in my sleep. “The largest rodent in the world
is the capybara,” he whispers to me
as we stand together gazing up
at the suddenly conspicuous silence
emanating from my ceiling joists.
(They seem to know he’s here.)
“It’s a hamster the size of a sheep
or a sow. There’s a family of them
at Southwick Zoo, across from the kangaroos,
catty-corner from the Patagonian
cavies. I visit them when I can.” His plan
is to figure out where they got in,
set his humane traps, catch them one by one,
then plug the hole and drive a hundred miles west
to the Berkshires. “Any closer than that
and they’d find their way back.” I like this guy
with his ladders and cages, his mercy and rodent
trivia: “Rodens is Latin for gnaw. They all
gnaw because they all have two incisors
that never stop growing. And gnawing
is the only way to keep them short. So you can’t
blame them.” I don’t blame them. I thank him.
I pay him. And part of me wants to go with him,
ride shotgun out to the Berkshires,
keep listening, learning, rethinking
Rodentia, a large family of gray squirrels
barking and chirping in the cargo bed,
the names of rodents encircling us. |
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