It didn’t snap,
the trap, when the vole
ran across it—I watched
from my kitchen window
as the fat gray body
emerged from the grass
and traipsed across the waiting trap
before it looped through the pansies
and returned to the lawn.
And I, who set the trap
with Adam’s Smooth Peanut Butter,
laughed with strange delight
in my failure to kill
that damn little kale eating vole.
What is it in us that learns to relax?
The tips of lawn grass trembled
as the vole ran its path back to the field,
oblivious to my scheming.
It knew only that the mint overtaking
the pansies was delicious,
so green, so fresh.