Marshmallow Has a Friend

When my niece Stella was young
her pet mouse Marshmallow
spent the days looking out
from its glass house
at vaulted crown molding,
floor-to-ceiling windows
and an ocean of leafy plants
in the family’s Brooklyn brownstone.
What more could a mouse want?

But,
one day
returning from a trip
to the seashore
Stella shouted excitedly
from her room,
“Marshmallow has a friend!”

There
in the terrarium
sat snowy white Marshmallow
with a brown Brooklyn house mouse.

My sister’s heart sank…
how many mice
did they have in their future?

How she wished
she could tell a boy mouse
from a girl mouse.

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