Sherine Elise Gilmour                                 [author bio]

 

Ghazal about Tails

Teeny me. I was once in Eden, enslaved by the smell of Eve in the morning.

She never heard the ballads I planned to whisper in her ear. Instead, my tail

 

was caught under Adam’s foot. How could it be that God gave me such a brain

in this body? I have the heart of Caesar. The eternity in my skin like an elephant. The tail,

 

of course, of a mouse. I am partially lucky in the year of the rat.

I’ve thought about writing a personal ad: Sweet voice. Great at telling tall tales.

 

Call me. I will be your slippery, gray baby. Once, I was mistaken for a potato.

A wife grabbed me for her soup-kettle, then shrieked when her hand touched my tail!

 

I am your Romeo. I am an Adonis closeted in a rodent’s frame. Cheese, cheese.

I dream of escaping from my life through a hole and on the other side I am huge, my tail

 

thunders on the ground, punctures the hearts of my enemies. Unlike you, I know my

mother loved me because she didn’t eat me. I can smell every creature on earth. Here’s a tale:

 

Mouse from the Latin, Mus, musculus meaning sack, meaning testicle, meaning

flavor of sex. The best part of this tale: It’s always been me from the start.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Sherine Elise Gilmour graduated with an M.F.A. in Poetry from New York University. Presently, she is a counselor living in Brooklyn. Her poems and reviews have been published or are forthcoming in Another Toronto Quarterly, American Book Review, La Petite Zine, Natural Bridge, River Styx, So To Speak, Spectrum, and Spring: The Journal of the e.e. cummings society.