I lift down the pistol box
brush off old spider husks,
dead houseflies and dust,
take the heavy Webley,
a tin of pewter pellets
then step into dawn’s
desultory half-light
     to shoot rats.

Under the ash tree
beside the chicken run
I watch for movement.
Pistol loaded, safety off.
One chance if I’m lucky –
if my hand is steady.
The odds are stacked
in favour of the rats.

In the corner of my eye
a dunnock turns a leaf.
Inside the grey coop,
the spinster hen
chuckles to herself.
She’s lived alone since Reynard
took her girlfriends for dinner
one after the other.

Shooting rats needs stealth
then zen-like patience.
Become the garden bench,
the heaped, mouldering leaves,
fallen fruit and leaning rake,
the November air
that doesn’t know
if it’s rain or not.

A true Buddhist might sit
for hours calm but aware,
feeling the damp on his skin
the gossip of birds,
the heft of an old pistol,
awaiting the rustle of a rat.
A true Buddhist
wouldn’t shoot the rat.

I don’t know how many rats
live beneath the henhouse,
they only appear one at a time.
Maybe there is just one,
one jet-eyed, bulb-arsed, scaly-tail.
But everybody knows
there’s no such thing
as a single rat.

And I know this is hopeless,
no way to get rid of rats,
what was I thinking?
I let the hen out then head in
to make breakfast for my wife.
Under the henhouse
the big family of rats
breathes a sigh of relief

‘At last! Whose turn was it to go first..?’