My best friend Steve
had a rat named Beulah
and although she wore the white pelt
and pert whiskers of a domestic pet
she never generated the heroics
of Disney’s menagerie;
rather, she’d
unwind her days doing a scurrying
hunch'n'hop
around the perimeter of the living room.

As a native Pittsburgh rat
Beulah escaped the bizarre fate
of her Baltimore cousins
who resided in neighborhoods
where the residents fished for rodents
using Kmart rods and big steel hooks
baited with cheese and rancid bacon.

Instead, she died rather mundanely
like many rats
at the end of her life's only adventure
fleeing the tame existence
of the living room
for the fresh air of the driveway
where the rear wheels
of Steve's dad's pickup truck
flattened and whirled
poor Beulah
in a counterclockwise
spinfest
of radial belted
frenzy