Apathetic, Empathetic

The conversation lasted into the
long tooth hours of the night.
She read her textbooks and then heard a mouse with its

tail barely caught in a glue trap. It squealed as if it were dying.

In my heart I believed it was savable.

In the agony I imagined him dreaming of fields and insects and seeds.
She had these cold gray eyes.
In one quick movement, she took off
one of her clodhoppers and smashed its brains out.

She cleaned her shoe with a tissue, she said,

I neither hate the mouse nor love it, it's just a thing.  

At that moment I was pretty sure she was psychotic.
We're both drunk, I kept watching her ass in that

tight  black dress.
She said in a very automated voice, I suppose you want to

fuck me now and then slithered out of the dress.
Pussy is pussy
But I couldn't do it. I told her to put her clothes

back on and not kill anything on the way out.