Shirley C. Legate (1929–2016), was a Canadian painter and print maker who lived in the Vancouver, B.C. area. Graduating from the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University of Art and Design) in 1951, she was a prolific artist leaving a legacy for many. I am grateful to her daughter for allowing me to show a piece of her mother’s work here. I appreciated the potential for escape suggested by the image.
rattus
Knowing your proclivity,
your commensal need
(to share my table),
and me with mine,
I set the plate of pellets
onto the slick surface
of my kitchen floor,
their colour cruel,
a poisonous pink,
but to you, dazzled,
pure candy.
Your demise, though,
I pictured off stage,
beneath the boards,
Shakespearean, that is,
a private affair,
perhaps with a small mischief
of loved ones mourning—
an end I expected
not to have to bear.
Instead, front-row seated,
I watched, saw you lurch
zigzag from tile to tile
like a bad actor, until,
mewling in your throes,
you stopped short
at the dishwasher,
defeated, slumping over
muted, stilled.
Poor brazen beastie!
Bright mammalian
of the lower rungs,
I saw you crushed
beneath my footprint.
We thieve to live,
both, yet it is you
who must give
your innocence,
controlled,
to another.
Yes, I took your life
for my own sake,
and will do so again.
Next time, though, I hope
you’ll be a little more
Elizabethan about it.
Sad and brutal honesty
unrepentant. yet you prize - and hope for better.