I am responding to the animals with whom I share my surroundings. Here, I have created a collaborative artwork with local rats, engaging them to chew away the painting surface in order to unveil the underlying structure.
It all started when:

She saw that rat wander over
almost seven months ago
from across the street
into the garden
she called it like a cat
kitty-kitty-kitty
it stopped to ask
is that an invitation?
maybe
how are you at dinner conversations?
and that's how it all started.

The rat settled in below the floorboards
she overhears its movements
and its mumblings
whispering about
architecture, philosophy, urban planning
and the allure of art
milking fault lines and storing things in anger
so strong and mixed up with desire
it licks its lips and
pleasures its fury body with it's own tail.

Every now and then she overhears her name
but can't make out the context
the seven-month invader
weaponing little claws
and teeth in justification
of the meanest reminders
has tunneled out the foundation.

In clever unexpected ways
the rat reworked how things stand up.

When will you be over and moving on?
when will you be done?
she asked pretending it's a question
will everything be hollowed out before
we understand what you wanted
but didn’t intend to mean?

The empty vase
left over from the last flowers
is reused for collecting notes
and scraps found when emptying pockets
at the end of the day.

The rat claims them
unfolding each, and sets them in a row
calling them poetry one minute
and the next using them like tea leaves
to predict the future.

You talk about not listening
that's not the future
the rat is retelling the past
and it isn't planning to leave.

And just when despair sets in
and the anxiety of counting up the costs
she finds the courage to ask the rat to go.

The rat holds her eyes
then shrugs and simply says
no, I’m not the one to go.

I love you, says the rat
and I love to see you squirm
I’m saving you from hubris and your pride
being committed to the world
pretending civility and stewardship and art
when you were made for private sufferings
writing poems and communing with the dead.

She fights back,
rat, you’re wrong
I’ve walked you in the round
noticed all the angles hiding in your fur
thinking the worst for your convenience
building melodramatic suicidal contraptions
to justify your actions
trailing a wasteland.

Your love was spent prematurely
breeding up a storm.

Left are constellation holes
chewed in the roof
icicles on the edges are
spearing shards of crystal
dripping from the ceiling
everything is dangerous and damp
dampening all desire
for the repair work needed
or for arguments claimed as art.

It’s time for you to go.

But she keeps responding
the only thing she thinks she knows
is not to be the one that gives up first
let the conversation end
when there is a possibility that it isn’t finished.

Mixed media, paint, seed, on wood with wildlife engagement