What Lives There

The shed is home to a metal bouquet of tools,
hungry shovels, rakes of all stripes,
a carpenter bee snugged deep in a beam.
A nail holds the poultry waterer,
from another dangles a rag, red bucket,
a misanthropic hula hoop. Empty feed bags
(too good to throw away), sag in a corner
and complain with a coterie of fenceposts.
The shelf is a smattering of goat treats,
an opened bag of generic cheerios,
animal crackers, and the saltine box
where you found a field mouse
rustling around in a blissful panic.
The floor is rotted, just another task
we say “tomorrow” to, and from behind
a tub of sweet feed, the upside down
Mona Lisa smile of the scythe sneers
her editorial work — the instrument
made to cut out all we don’t want
from the living.