ONCE TWICE BITTEN BY: PETER PORTER

The trap setter in a steel dawn
Picks up his dead rabbits and goes home
Whistling: his tune lies over the wet fields
In the shrinking morning shadows.
The gift of morning life brings
Ave broken backs for the rabbits
Dangling in his hessian wrap.
In his own house an old mother
Wastes herself for a busy cancer,
She has always sacrificed flesh and time
For others–a thin heart hates a fat man
In the same room of waiting,
And outside, two children chase
A cockerel from a hen; their sister,
In love with a school teacher,
Pushes back the sex in her measuring blouse.
Now the house basks in bridal sun
Brimming with doves. This is where
The dead rabbits come, giving rife
To the fat dog and his mange and the tired wife
Dried by the recurring sun of her kitchen.
Now it is electric eleven o'clock–the stewing meat
Smells savoury past the pruned-back roses
And wafts on the street's spindly limits,
The only fragrance of defence and love.

- A thank you from BooksCardsNBikes