It was a lonely death. Inconveniently it passed
Burrowed furtive deep into the fine spun glass
Wool mat within the wall. The odour of decay
Is fugitive, found there in a corner but it may
Not appear here. So I breathe a nasty thickness
In the kitchen air where a foggy sickness,
A plague miasma breeds its flies as usual.
With sudden moves black, irregular and casual.
They seek a new love unattainable, immured,
As do I. With bar, hammer, my quest assured

I rip rough holes into their secret world where,
Guided by nose: foul here, less foul there;
I dowse for death. The small corpse finally,
Greyfurred and bloated, falls soft and wetly
In its debris, fragments of its final bed.
There’s a village out of sight, alive and dead
Behind the plaster and the lath; a tribe hidden.
Dried dung pellets and snail shell middens
I clear from dark and foetid cupboard backs
To find their quiet Lilliput of nests and tracks.

With these quiet grey watchers we are not alone.
They fit their small lives in amongst our own,
Weaving their tough and tiny threads into our fabric.
We in our turn are mere shadows, another tragic
And clouded mirror of some much greater realm
Whose unknown mystery may yet overwhelm
Our self-important needs. Like household servants
We are become invisible, slaving in the basements.
Mere adjuncts to the noble acts and passions
Of larger lives. We watch and wait in rattish fashion
Until we reveal our tiny and annoying presence,
When foul stenches mark the end of our existence.