#1176 - killing this rat

 

1176

22.iii.23

4.81

killing this rat

 

it was a long time

veranda runner

 

just about

what a rat’s to do

 

tough old bugger

took two big traps

and the poison was gone before that

 

there’s been too much of this

wall gnaw run

furtive

 

flail and thrash

an all-nighter

sickening

 

eyes like ours

all whiskered round

has sniff and see

 

here’s guilt

 

something medieval

vindictive in me

 

this had to be killed in stages

 

close doors, windows

not to hear

 

hope that there’s no blood

 

I was like a church

with my sentence

and my certainty

 

all through the snapped down evening

I feel the life force

 

no outwitting this

a longer evolution

 

and species will

post dinosaur

the sixty million years

 

poison, as I said

wink and we go on

 

because, having once begun …

 

it was the sum of all that rat had known

tiny perfect paws

 

as if it were belled, a pet

and some have

 

left for dead

a kind of dignity

 

it’s every animal

on whom we project

the coward flail and scamper

 

we speak of skinning cats

 

in my dream, while you were dying

rat, and yet you might have lived

some several places gone

 

must finish what was started

must act upon intent

 

drowning, no

there’s climbing out then

 

even at this last

there’s clawing bucket sides

to be away

to have the run of the house

 

then I, the blinded giant after

furniture tumbling away

would thrash

must have some blade to

 

I ask

would not killing make me strong?

 

there is no height to break it

would always be four paws

 

they never do away with themselves

 

a block of wood pounding

in the end

 

no coroner to call

but I should guess

things broken

 

all organs failure

 

I’m sorry

 

not sorry

you’re gone

 

I’m sorry for so long a death

 

so clean your conscience lies