A Rat’s Tale

I once bought a dumbo rat for my teenage son
because I felt bad for the difficult patch he’d endured, well, guilty
It was a big rat, bigger than the ones I’ve seen in the yard
but with the same twitching and long hairless tail

The rat, its name I’ve forgotten, lived in a complicated cage
with layers and tunnels and what seemed like a dozen doors
This made me worry, anticipate the rat tiptoeing into my bed
and flicking its tail across my cheek

After a while the rat pulled the guilt out of me, swallowed it whole
so I took it to the humane society, my son didn’t care
He knew the rat was a bridge, a way to get from a bad place
to life before, which I realized much later, like tonight

This is why I don’t give parenting advice

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Photo by Oxana Golubets on Unsplash