Cane Toads, House Mice, Ship Rats, Friends

I love them all. I don’t mean them,
The meat and skin and teeth of them—

Just the thought of them, the bald fact
Of tons and tons and tons of them—

Brute wants here and there in the world.
Yes, I have trapped, cut, and crushed them—

By car tire (toads), by snap traps (mice),
And, once, a rat with a large knife.

But I love them. They are true signs
If not saints. They are life as life,

Forms that swamp odds in wave on wave.
What if all the rest of us left,

Each kind that gives birth to live young
Or hops and spawns, but them? Won’t be,

But if it were, the world, I think
Would be fine, or at least no worse,

And in N years, the rats would turn,
The toads would spawn new kinds of things.

Earth would move on, I’m sure, and life
Might give up speech, but would still eat.