THE COUNTRY 

I wondered about you 
when you told me never to leave 
a box of wooden, strike-anywhere matches 
lying around the house because the mice 
might get into them and start a fire. 
But your face was absolutely straight 
when you twisted the lid down on the round tin 
where the matches, you said, are always stowed. 
Who could sleep that night? 
Who could whisk away the thought 
of the one unlikely mouse 
padding along a cold water pipe 
behind the floral wallpaper 
gripping a single wooden match 
between the needles of his teeth? 
Who could not see him rounding a corner, 
the blue tip scratching against a rough-hewn beam, 
the sudden flare, and the creature 
for one bright, shining moment 
suddenly thrust ahead of his time— 
now a fire-starter, now a torch-bearer 
in a forgotten ritual, little brown druid 
illuminating some ancient night. 
Who could fail to notice, 
lit up in the blazing insulation, 
the tiny looks of wonderment on the faces 
of his fellow mice, one-time inhabitants 
of what once was your house in the country? 

—Billy Collins