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Rats

by Elizabeth Hurst

 

They stained their pink and busy hands

Conquering all earth's peopled lands.

Little dream beasties, Freudian turds,

Collapsible bones, darkly immured

With strong clawed feet and wormy tails

Tracking their piss in eloquent trails,

Revolting, disgusting as can be. Yet

They love us, enchant us—sinister pet,

A scurrying kingdom, thick underneath

Gray city streets, in the sewers of Lethe,

Below our floors, within our walls

Footholds of empire, vast rodent halls.


They swim open sea, they sleep in ice

And pollute starved peoples' stores of rice.

Prudent, oh yes, but free of fear

They followed us, and they'll be here

When radiation burns up the soil

And glows in their genetic coil.

Tough little bastards, filthy elves,

Loving families, altruistic selves;

They married us, for mostly ill.

We poison them, they're with us still.

They haunt our houses, own our dumps,

Slide up pipes to nip our rumps.

They've gnawed their way into our core

By making love instead of war.