Left to Their Own Devices
by Joan Pond
Men in her life were like the hamsters
she”d had as a child.
Left too long by a radiator,
they cooked.
Or, as the one she took,
limp,
from his shoe-box house;
he”d given up the ghost
when he couldn”t breathe.
It wasn”t easy remembering to give them
water and rodent feed.
Returning from school,
their bodies as lumps of clay;
where she”d left them in cages
to play with sharp objects.
Leslie would say,
“Men left to their own devices,
were like the hamsters
she”d had as a child.”
***