Civet Poem by Gert Strydom

At night a civet
sneaks around in the chicken pen,
biting Bantam-fowls, big white Leghorns
and every chicken
that it finds dead.

At sunrise it is gone,
with dead chickens lying in a row
while those that it could not find
are cackling frightened
as if a snake is in their nests.

In the mornings mom is way past angry,
buys a spring trap
to catch the chicken thief red handed
and to me the teeth
that springs shut
looks strange and deadly.

The spring trap is set
but the wild cat is far too clever
for that thing and sneaks past
night after night,
until mom gets wolves poison
that she mixes with the guts
of one of the dead chickens.

The next morning
the grey civet
(just a little bigger than the housecat)
with its black stripes covering its body,
lies rigid and stretched out
and around it
the chickens are pecking in peace.