The Mice War

The Mice War


We dumped six garbage cans and watched dozens of mice
race for their lives across the gray sand of the reservation
landfill. With shovel and broomstick, my cousin and I

chased them down. I beheaded twenty-seven before I
simply beat one mouse into a red puddle. The reservation
had taught me to hate, so it was easy to hate the mice.

I swung the shovel until my hands blistered. I killed mice
because they were mice. I swung the shovel until I
could barely raise my arms. I hated the reservation

because it was the reservation. It was my reservation.
I swung the shovel until the surviving mice
ran into the thick grass on the perimeter of the fill. I

chased them down. I beat the grass because it was grass. I
hated the grass because the reservation
had taught me to hate grass. I chased the last mouse

into the last corner. There, in that place, I
stepped on that mouse because it was part of all mice.
I broke its spine because my reservation

believed in broken spines, because my reservation
believed in blood, because my reservation believed in mice
and the broken spines and the blood of mice. Because I

believed in the blood of mice, I kneeled to pray when I
discovered blood on my shoes. O, Lord, the blood of mice.
O, Lord, the broken back of my reservation

trembles and stirs. The fault line that bisects my reservation
shifts me from one sin to another, from the blood of one mouse
to another, from this prayer to that prayer. O, Lord, I

tossed the bloody shoes into the burning barrel. O, Lord I
dropped the dead mice into the fire and the reservation
burned. O, Lord, this is how I remember my war with the mice,

who, in the beginning and in the end, only wanted to be mice,
while we were two Indian boys, my cousin and I
who, in our beginning, in our end, wanted to flee the reservation.


Sherman Alexie..............from One Stick Song