How Long Does It Take a Mouse?

How long does it take a mouse
to learn the ways of its people, when
the nose is small and pink and the ears
are cupped soft and gray to the sky? They suffer
so much scorn and danger, their
feces and urine are despised, they carry germs,
they never knew it, they never decided to do so,
they were born untouchables,
emerged in a world of the hunted,
the trapped, the poisoned, the ones stuck to glue trays
squeaking until death, (what descendant of Dr Mengele invented that?) They just try to live like all of us
like anything with soft white bellies that feel hunger
and hearts that can respond to love.
I don’t believe they meant to be in anyone’s way
but who does?