Aneurism
by Meg Kearney

Her artery, that snake,
swallowed a rat
decades ago. The rat
loved it so
inside the tunnel
of her body, it curled up
inside those walls, as rats
will do, and called
the tunnel home,
lounging there as if
it had found the dark
alley behind a bistro
bar — booze, cigarettes,
scraps of gourmet fare.
Burrowed in his trove
of trash, dozy from naps
and the muffling thrum —
no wonder that rat
never budged. Now
it’s grown so fat
it couldn’t scurry
if it felt the urge,
and the walls of that snake’s
body have worn
thin, stretched with the bulge
turning into stone.
The only option: the rat’s
abode has got to go,
says the surgeon, while
the rat lies low, smoking
a Virginia Slim, contemplating
home, the knife, the burst
of light.