Small Memoriam - edit

[matsunosuperfan]

Small Memoriam


Can anyone feel such sincere regret
for acts which cannot be undone and yet
on balance had to be accomplished?  Pet
he was not, just a common long-tailed mouse
who got inside somehow...  but in my house
that smallest presence made me feel a louse
for plotting his demise.  He’d sit and view
computer movies ‘til I saw him, too,
then run when noticed.  Though I had a few
ideas how to catch him, nothing worked–
he’d lick the bait from traps but never jerked
them hard enough to trigger.  Still he lurked:
declined a private room (my live-catch trap),
approved noir cinema, left tiny crap
on pantry floors, chewed through chips’ Mylar wrap...

I see him from the corner of my eye–
his ghost, it must be, mouse that had to die.
And that is best for him and me, I lie.

Think this is quite strong already. The rhyme is mostly well-handled, and the theme while a common one is approached with enough particularity and voice that it doesn't feel tiresome or rote. Nice work  

The few places that did feel a bit forced-to-form really stick out for me, because the rest is so smooth:
made me feel a louse - this doesn't feel idiomatic or vernacular to my ear, and distracts as such
he'd sit and view - "view" doesn't feel like a natural verb to use here. "sit and" feels like filling beats. 
but never jerked - unnatural diction again
chips' Mylar wrap - I wouldn't capitalize, even if that's technically correct, as it calls too much undeserved attention to the word. chips' Mylar wrap is awkward to read aloud.

 
I really dig the last three lines, usually I resist a summative ending but this strikes me as apt epilogue. The poem presents as a parable, so to end by making the moral explicit works for me. 

I'm less convinced that the prologue - the opening question in the first three lines - is necessary. I think it possibly prejudices us too much as to the arc of the narrative we're about to receive. If we're going to know how the speaker feels about it all before anything even happens, then I think to balance this we need more "middle" - right now, the PHILOSOPHY of the occasion is spelled out at beginning and end. But the actual action of how the mouse dies is left implied. If anything, I'm inclined to think it would be more powerful to reverse that. 

Thanks for sharing your work with me <3