Early Learning

In summer we helped mix
swill for penned and snouting pigs

the foul stink of fermenting dregs mashed
in a zinc bathtub with a shovel,

larger than life for two small boys.
There was death in it.

And then in the stifling dust-mote
speckled barn a dare to kick the bales

to unravel a settlement of rats
and send the dark shapes scuttling,

rabid, the shattering of the farmer's
gun. It seemed the noise not bullets

that killed them one by one.
Even the dust was in uproar.

These sudden small explosions of death
more visible but no easier to grasp

for boys with hands too small
to even lift a shovel.