Rats

Roland Leach

I took the axe from the back-shed and stood over the rat on the lawn. We had tried killing the rats with poison, complained about the noise in the roof and now the cat had brought him to me: Traumatised, his claws fixed into the grass, eyes staring out. No more than a large mouse, someone’s pet. I waited axe in hand for longer than was manly. My father would have ended it by now. As kids kittens had disappeared with a knock on the head, even our dog who swallowed plastic. We had tried killing the rats with poison but killing is hard face to face. I went inside hoping it would go away, thinking how language invents words that make right to kill: Pests, vermin, infestations. How it was no longer right to kill a whale. Endangered, whale-song. It is hard to love a rat. Hard to kill a rat. I carry him out to the back lane in a pool-net, finding him a place in the high grass where the crows might not get him.