![boy, those mice were fast
a single beat of time
from when they got seen
to when they ran to the hole
in the tree where the rest
of the poem was
that was the week I didn’t eat
but I packed and I packed
brown is a nice color
a full cardboard box was hard
enough to sit on almost
everything went home 3rd class
and took months
to arrive in pieces
it’s poetry: not a thing
that is written
it’s a perpetual divorce
but only on paper](https://i0.wp.com/www.themetaworker.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Dart-Away-1.png?resize=380%2C615&ssl=1)
![you have to be looking at a poem
to tell if it is a one or
it might tell you it’s one
by saying hyacinths
I am left explaining
that not seeing
the mice dart away
is the good part --
a poem written on the back
of music paper](https://i0.wp.com/www.themetaworker.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Dart-Away-2.png?resize=424%2C339&ssl=1)
Jamie Spenser‘s poetry has been published in New York Quarterly, Sheila-Na-Gig, and Disappointed Housewife. His outpourings about TV commercial production and the art-rock band Devo have appeared in Perfect Sound Forever. He doodles kitchen appliances and takes cat pictures that have been featured by Huffington Post and the San Francisco Examiner.