The scratches were not the soft drip
of water after a light spring rain, so my father,
sure that the culprit was some kind of stuck critter,
took his toolbox outside to take apart the gutter.
I had watched chipmunks dive into the plastic pipes,
skittering, clattering all the way to the bottom,
so I imagined that one had somehow lost its balance,
turning and twisting itself into a tight somersault,
neck curved forward, head pushed into its chest,
tail curled between its hind legs, paws scrambling
trying to unwind itself from its snug ball.
I had seen dead mice tangled in traps,
flies that had long since stopped struggling
while stuck in spider webs, so I wanted something
to break free, the same way I longed to pull my hair
from its braid, or strip away my T-shirt and jeans,
hemlines and seams that had cinched my body tight.
I watched my father slip apart the pieces that rattled
under his fingers and a chipmunk tumbled out,
body unraveling in the grass, spine stretching
until its stripes straightened, until its legs
stood steady, until its round eyes stopped blinking
in the light, as if surprised that help had come.
And when help did, the way that it had arrived.
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