Transporting Squirrels by Martha Christina

Caught in my neighbor’s
Havahart trap,
the young squirrel
runs back and forth,
back and forth, frantic.
It can’t imagine what
I know my neighbor
has planned.

She loads the trap
into her car. Those
vermin dug up my
tulip bulbs again,
she says. Those
bulbs cost money!
She slams the door,
heads south, across
the bridge, across
the bay to a treeless
cove, to empty the trap.
Useless to remind her
transporting is
against the law;
she’s willing to pay
any fine, if caught.

Over the week,
she traps and
transports three.
Useless to remind her
squirrels live in families.
My son-in-law would
shoot them, she says.

And so would mine.



Martha Christina is a frequent contributor to Brevities. Longer work appears in Innisfree Poetry Journal, Naugatuck River Review, earlier postings of Red Eft Review, and most recently in Star 82 Review, and Crab Orchard Review. She has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press).