Death of a Trespasser

The farmer’s days were long and hard.

He wouldn’t have been the man he was
Had he lived a life of leisure.
The little leisure that came his way
Made him anxious for work.
And ill at ease.
His work was his being.

He shot him between the eyes.
Shot more for the potato-death
Than for the sin of the trespass.
A little perturbed,
He asked himself: Now; what to do?

At one with soil, at home in the field,
He buried the body without much ado -
To rot into the earth he'd just ploughed.
But then, with a taste for vengeance,
He went home and killed his wife too.

As methodical with limbs and organs
As with tractor and plough,
He cut her up (into bite-sized pieces) for the deep freeze.
That’ll do the trick, he said to himself.

Sat there, smoking in deep comfort
At the evening’s fire,
He thought of the peace he’d now enjoy.
And all the while
There was a cut-up corpse in the fridge;
A young man’s body in the field;
And turnips, just harvested,
Waiting tastily in the pantry.