that gets in and kills every last one, that fastens
on what it finds there and leaves a gory mess, yes
a nightmare is being trapped with its slippery
muscular intention and the means to do it
to smell the rancid Mustelid before it
weasels triumphant through a small wire hole
or finds a way to burrow under the coop, how the
bright face appears first, snarling and alert with malevolent
determination, then the body and then the soundtrack: bite, crunch, suck
attached like a leech, to know it’s your turn next, to back up against
what gives just a little, not enough, trapped with a squirming
leaping weasel who finishes off every last one, even she can’t
escape, is eighty-nine years old when the weasel
arrives when it gets in, yes, and quickly ends it all
did any of them recognize the fierce and cunning devil
in its stench before it got in? did any of them feel the clamour
of fear? some must have when it wiggled malodorous
with ecstatic intention at the enclosure before it found a
way in and began on first one, then the next, then the next
all gone, all gone, her daughter phones her
late that night and says, a weasel got in the coop because
we weren’t there, were visiting you on your birthday
the intimacy of the connection troubles the old woman
the birthday girl, how that day they’d even had fun, had feasted
at the Keg (she’d paid of course) because her daughter
lives in a cabin in a dark forest, cuts wood for a living
bags it and sells it, sometimes she even brings
her mother delicious eggs, so fresh
you could have been delivering wood
the old woman begs for a different version, but
her daughter can’t hear because she’s still screaming
about how the weasel got into the chicken coop, it got in
while they were gone and killed them all, left a scene
of carnage, how awful that her eighty-ninth will be marked
by a weasel on a murder spree, by that sense
of no escape, all gone so fast, if it was a dream
she could just wake up but she’s eighty-nine
years old and when did that happen
and how will it end?
Rose Cullis (she/they) is a queer writer/playwright/educator. They’ve had short stories, plays and monologues published in several theme-based anthologies and essays in Event and This Magazine. Cullis completed an MFA in Creative Writing at Guelph University in 2017 and attended Banff’s Performing Arts Creative Lab (March 2022) to develop After/BAAL, a new play with music. Most recently, they have work in Brick 110 (Winter 2023).
