Woodchucks

    Gassing the woodchucks didn't turn out right.

    The knockout bomb from the Feed and Grain Exchange

    was featured as merciful， quick at the bone

    and the case we had against them was airtight，

    both exits shoehorned shut with puddingstone，

    but they had a sub-sub-basement out of range.

    Next morning they turned up again， no worse

    for the cyanide than we for our cigarettes

    and state-store Scotch¹， all of us up to scratch.

    They brought down the marigolds as a matter of course

    and then took over the vegetable patch

    nipping the broccoli² shoots， beheading the carrots.

    The food from our mouths， I said， righteously thrilling

    to the feel of the .22， the bullets' neat noses.

    I， a lapsed³ pacifist fallen from grace

    puffed⁴ with Darwinian pieties⁵ for killing⁶，

    now drew a bead⁷ on the little woodchuck's face.

    He died down in the everbearing roses.

    Ten minutes later I dropped the mother.  She

    flipflopped in the air and fell， her needle teeth

    still hooked in a leaf of early Swiss chard.

    Another baby next.  O one-two-three

    the murderer inside me rose up hard，

    the hawkeye killer⁸ came on stage forthwith.

    There's one chuck left. Old wily fellow， he keeps

    me cocked and ready day after day after day.

    All night I hunt his humped-up form.  I dream

    I sight along the barrel in my sleep.

    If only they'd all consented to die unseen

    gassed underground the quiet Nazi⁹ way.