A House Divided

It was the fifth mouse

in the attic, the forty-seventh

school shooting of the year.

My credit score cratered: five-sixty.

The only consolation: the mourning doves

making a home in my Japanese dogwood.

Theirs too are flimsy,

yet they tend it together—

the male by day,

the female by night.

Something in their call,

between minor and major,

nothing perfect but still

standing.

Michael Alcée