Inauguration Day Poem

Crap! I was just checking out the Best American Poetry blog because I'm going to be guest blogging for them next week, and saw their "Inaugural Poem Contest." So, I wrote one. THEN, after I wrote it, I discovered that faculty from the New School Writing Program can't enter. Oh well; fair enough. I think I wrote a good poem, tho, so here it is. The first line is from Laura Cronk's poem "Entering," which appeared in BAP 2008 (one of the rules was that the poem had to contain a line found somewheres in BAP 2008):


Inauguration Day Mouse
(for Laura Cronk)


The mice must have these visions:
the founding fathers, their poor eyesight,
the littlest mus musculus escaping the trap
to ultimately become the most recognizable

American icon, after the flag.
Today I personally honor these smallest
of small world contributors, so full of integrity,
faith and hope, ever steadfast in the face

of so many bigger and stinkier heels.
Where the faithful and hopeful mouse goes,
there go I, squeaking Change to Power.
And soon, in some undiscovered corner,

in the middle of the night, I shall find
some savory delicious and nutritious
crumb of something, and for once — just once —
it won't snap its breathtaking jaw.