Anyway, it was a woman
who actually spoke first.
“I smell a rat!”
said no Henry or Hamlet
Hard(l)y a Thomas, nary a Richard but a Jane Doe
made this first lament
despite the great efforts spent
assigning credit-worthiness,
sighting the source, casting quoted blame
upon small creatures.
And ultimately, it comes to require
repetition, a mask
of sense-ability, or sorts
of ilk and stank disguised with must.
The woman slips into the cloak,
it spreads across the floor.
The folded entity
has been
erased from the scene.
A mole scurries out from the hem
leaving a mark of beauty
above the spoken word.
Painting by Giovanni Segantini [Public domain], c. 1891 via Wikimedia Commons.
