Shooting Rats at the Bibb County Dump

  by David Bottoms

   Loaded on beer and whiskey, we ride

   to the dump in carloads

   to turn our headlights across the wasted field,

   freeze the startled eyes of rats against mounds of rubbish.

   Shot in the head, they jump only once, lie still

   like dead beer cans.

   Shot in the gut or rump, they writhe and try to burrow

   into garbage, hide in old truck tires,

   rusty oil drums, cardboard boxes scattered across the mounds,

   or else drag themselves on forelegs across our beams of light

   toward the darkness at the edge of the dump.

   It's the light they believe kills.

   We drink and load again, let them crawl

   for all they're worth into the darkness we're headed for.

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