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hear it scratching and gnawing, making a vicious racket and leaving bits of its dung behind. I was
afraid to open the cupboard, even after the rat had deserted it. I was afraid of what I might see They
say that rats appear at night, but this rat was not like that: it appeared only during the day. At times it
seemed to be taunting me. At times it seemed to say, “You believe this house to be yours, but this
house belongs as well to me. I am only a rat, but I am a master here.”
And to invade my house was akin to invading me. The rat had done that. It had entered the sphere
of my being, and it seemed to have no fear of me or anything else. What would you have done? Phone
the exterminator? But I had no money for that. All I had was a large, heavy shovel. It was in my garage
when I bought the house and I had never used it for anything. But it was there,waiting.
One day the rat appeared. He seemed to be especially defiant that day, darting across the floor. If
rats can laugh, it seemed to me that he was laughing at me, at the spectacle of an old, thin man
holding a heavy shovel. He made a sound that reminded me of laughter. It was all too much. I
slammed the shovel on him with every ounce of strength I had. It landed. He was alive, but very badly
hurt. Desperate, he made another sound—a sound I took to mean, “Help me. I am a creature you have
harmed. I have no more wish to die than you have. Help me.”
The rat lay there, bleeding onto my shovel. Suddenly I felt a great pity for him. I had a sense of the
desperate life he must have led, danger all around him, how difficult it must have been for him to find
food and shelter. He had found a safe haven in my house, which he had made into his house as well.
Who was I to judge? In another life I too might have been a rat. In another life I might have been worse
than that—a worm, a piece of dirt. The rat, like me, was alive. He was perhaps my brother. “Think of all
creatures,” said a Buddhist teacher, “even a rat, as your mother.”
Then I slammed the shovel on him once again. Harder this time. He was no more. Nothing but a
terrible blotch on my kitchen floor. A mess that was once a living thing. I removed him with rubber
gloves and disposed of his mangled corpse in the trash. Again and again I cleaned and disinfected the
area where he had been, but it doesn’t matter. There are days—not nights, days—when I see him still,
though I know he no longer exists. There are days when I know, in another life, I was a suicide: I too
was “brother rat.” I know now that, in killing him, it was myself that I killed. And I know further that
when I die, he will stand next to me, accusing me, making the rat sounds that he made in my kitchen
and knowing that I will pay for my deed. It will be clear then that he is alive and that I am the man, the
dying man, on whom the sun has gone down.

Jack Foley has published 17 books of poetry, 5
books of criticism, a book of stories, and a
1300-page “chronoencyclopedia,” Visions &
Affiliations: California Poetry 1940-2005. He
became well known through his multi-voiced
performances with his late wife, Adelle, also
a poet. He currently performs with his new
life partner, Sangye Land. He has presented
poetry on radio station KPFA since 1988 and
has received two Lifetime Achievement
Awards.

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