Dowsing for the Mole at Age Eight

For three days I have allowed the mole

to augment his Byzantine dominion.

I have borrowed the kitchen knife

and knotted it to the hazel branch

with twine: a proper dowser

with which to witch the varmint out.

The serrated blade ruptures the black

galleries of his blind scuttle;

he rustles the tunnel with retreat,

loses me at the labyrinth hub.

He urges me over the moled quarter-acre

of the front lawn-his meandering mine.

His old ways become caved in, stomped down.

Soon there is only the long corridor -

balked at both ends. He shuttles back

and forth between those walls

that stalk and turn him back again,

that four-foot artery that is his last

precinct of instinct. I steady

my heartbeat, take my time.

Abruptly, he finds his ambit halved.

_ Lam coiled at the midpoint, timing

his dartles. The branch trembles;

then my hand is pulled down sharp

by that mammal's tiny, frantic heart.

Structure

25 lines · 4 stanzas