When the rat climbing up the wall 

makes a seedy flower go bloom, my organs 

rearrange themselves in frightful frenzy. 

Rat fur does that to my nervous system. 

It’s strange mouse fur 

doesn’t coax the same response 

from the bundle of neurons 

coiled up like a garden hose 

in the backyard of the Berkeley home 

I’m priced-out of ever owning.

In this $50-a-night space, I sprawl across a bed 

I’ve resigned myself to sleep 

on the bodily fluids spilled before me. 

They haunt like a nefarious realtor. 

As the rat and I breathe the same air, can a rat 

buy a financial smile? I know seediness 

scurries beyond one motel room’s interior 

into the city cage that encloses

a California living room 

Mary and I have yet to plant our feet in 

with a For Sale sign 

skewered into grass out front.