Loaded on beer and whiskey, we ride <br />to the dump in carloads <br />to turn our headlights across the wasted field, <br />freeze the startled eyes of rats against mounds of rubbish. <br /> <br />Shot in the head, they jump only once, lie still <br />like dead beer cans. <br />Shot in the gut or rump, they writhe and try to burrow <br />into garbage, hide in old truck tires, <br />rusty oil drums, cardboard boxes scattered across the mounds, <br />or else drag themselves on forelegs across our beams of light <br />toward the darkness at the edge of the dump. <br /> <br />It's the light they believe kills. <br />We drink and load again, let them crawl <br />for all they're worth into the darkness we're headed for.<br /><br />David Bottoms<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/shooting-rats-at-the-bibb-county-dump/
