Odious business this,
Like carpet bombing in Iraq.
I, too, never see my foe
(Though I can hear it scrabbling
Behind the boxes, bins, tools, tires).
Beyond my ears, more evidence:
Shucked sunflower seeds
Spilt beside a sack
I left unguarded overnight.
Painfully, I know
Just why I must react,
My memory still new
Of a refrigerator on the curb,
Victim of a nesting urge
That gnawed wires,
Ravaged insulation.
So today I neatly laid
A poison picnic:
Coumarin-containing bait
So innocently blue
It could be a baby’s beads
Scattered from an accident,
Each a toxic bite.
And now I sit here at my desk,
Waiting, hoping, ruing
That my unrelenting instinct,
My directive to protect my home,
Will soon produce a purge,
A slow and bloody death,
And yet another stick of guilt
Atop my overwhelming load.
©2009 John I. Blair
