Mule the world
Her soles caked with soot smeared dirt
onto white tiles as she ran in with the laundry.
Fat raindrops at the doorway.
The bedroom window rattled from gusts.
She made it in time, just a splinter, a sprain,
saved it all from the dirt,
and the whole house stained
with her footprints.
The lights cut off.
Two lights in the street almost collided.
The blind mule brayed at the mayhem
as he stood shining in the headlights.
A mild ache in the sides of her temples.
Tea wasn’t in her diet plan.
And a low growl from the skies
and the side of her left rib.
The lightning flash made her wince
like her lover’s fist.
Her phone chimed light
from the corner of the floor
where it vibrated with the name of
her niece, only six,
though she could dial unlike her mother.
“Hello?”
“Hello! My mother asks when are you coming back, aunt?”
“Once my work is done here.”
She rubbed the chafe from the windowsill.
Outside, the mule screamed again.
“What’s your work there?”
The door slammed in another room.
“I shut windows right before thunderstorms.”
“But my mother does too.”
Her phone caught the vibrations
of an incoherent woman.
She sighed, fumbling in the dark.
“...of the whole town.”
“So means you will have no work in summers.”
“Uh huh?”
Her desk jabbed into her thigh.
The paperweight rolled out.
“Then come back to our house. Mama says she wants bigger rooms.”
“Do you know why?”
“Why aunt?”
“Because the last ones couldn’t fit an elephant.”
“Why elephant?”
“A white elephant perhaps.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Would you like a pet?”
“Can I have a caterpillar? I can keep them inside my ear and take them everywhere.”
“Nah uh, that’s a centipede, silly.”
“What’s the difference?”
“They’re slim, shiny, and have more legs.”
“And?”
“They live under rocks and eat flesh.”
“What color of butterfly do they become?”
“They don’t become butterflies.”
“So, what do they become?”
“They become sand.”
“Oh, so that’s where all the sand came from.”
“Uh huh, genius.”
“What pet would you like, aunt?”
“A mule.”
“Why though? They’re ugly.”
“It’ll keep them off the streets. Or if not, I can travel the world on them. They just need a little guidance. They can mule the world.”
The whole city lit up, and her room.
“What mule means?”
“I don’t know. Ask a mule.”
Mud marks streaked the tiles
as she followed them
to the balcony,
the clothes scattered, drenched in rain.
“So we should get the pet who needs us.”
“Uh huh.”
“Then I don’t want a caterpillar anymore.”
“Why?”
“Talking to you on the phone feels like I have a centipede in my ear.”
This is amazing Reminds me of some of those old tales from folklore that I really enjoy
What stayed with me was the way the poem keeps shifting between tenderness, exhaustion, danger, absurdity, and care without ever forcing one final meaning over the others.
The conversation with the child carries so much underneath it — loneliness, survival, deflection, affection, violence, imagination — all moving quietly through ordinary language and weather.
And the ending lands beautifully because it remains playful and unsettling at the same time.