Leon Trainor: To the Last

     To the Last

In the country we kill a lot.

It must be done, nobody else

will do it for us. Souls who dwell

city-safe never give it thought.

Take captive rats: ten beady eyes

fasten on us, watching to see

what we’ll do, until we drop

their trap in a water bucket.

This bountiful autumn we caught

thirty-two, a mere iceberg-tip.

Another trap, hauled from a dam,

writhing with contorted eels;

what’s the first thing we do?

Pin down their heads, chop them all off

and feed them to the cockerels

(one day we’ll cut off their heads too).

Don’t think there’s no room for love

in this unresolved conundrum.

While slaughter gratifies our needs,

and no amount of cookery skills

could justify us to the beasts,

we may be certain they still feel.

For instance, consider the lambs:

each one’s mother had cut it loose

from the teat, henceforth to eat grass

wholly on its own, comfortless.

Came the day we took a young ram,

cut its throat, dragged it a paddock-

length to be hung, gutted and skun,

its mother broke from the clenched flock,

followed in evident distress

to know what became of her son.

Leon Trainor