Spoiler Alert

a poem I keep futzing around with but it features raccoons... again

Spoiler Alert

It is messy at times... *

1.

Nobody dies on screen.

Somebody has to kill it

saying what happens

at the end

after the trap set

after the scent of peanut butter

after a wet dreamnight.

What catches a raccoon:

the turn of the earth a gleam

the unspent seeds

the pine siskins refuse to eat.

2.

Hard not to believe this

the right thing, this feeding

of grosbeak, red-winged, and

golden breasted, this

a kind of redemption

for hunger. Blame

those who puppet the world,

profit by the spoils. Surely

even they countenance

a thing on the wing, perhaps

only to kill what sings.

3.

Night after night the trigger

awaits a target. It is dark when it happens:

the clank of metal on metal the surprise gasp

scream or something deeper

more reverent

silence

that question of how a world begins

ends with thievery

a god

a thought

even a bang

a whisper.

4.

A friend seriously suggests

the people of Gaza should choose

relocation rather than

annihilation, rather than waiting

for the airstrikes their fields to burn.

Consider the raccoons here in what

we call our yard, the harrying unleashed,

the removal of food and kin, consider

who’s moved in on whom.

5.

What once was determined

fauna enrichment in Germany:

the North American raccoon.

A million strong now a has-been

cutie hunted as game, invasive,

carrion and pest, a robust vector

of nasties that can kill the hands

that feed, no matter how often

everyone washes their hands

of them.

6.

While one of us watches the art

thriller and hopes the blood is just

virtual,

the other taking heart

from the Rom-Com Rotten Tomatoes

scores 54%, the “street cleaners” show up.

Next morning we replay

the animal cams: nine raccoons,

beautiful in the halftone light,

digging up what’s been cropped.

7.

a midden of cracked shells

sprouts irrespective of drought

one zebra-striped moth wing

no body to hold it down

a spider hangs by a thread

in the camera’s light

the flying squirrel a marvel

a fluorescing looter we applaud

and here coupled

these pastel and collared doves

until

and unless

---

*from “Las Golondrinas Always Come Back” by Rev. John Hagerman Spirit & Life. Las golondrinas, Spanish for swallows.

Note: the spacing is always weird in Substack