My uncle receives a phone call

            a neighbour’s dog frothing and fitting.

He’s already shoved his hose down his its throat

                      forced what was down up.

            They stay up all night, it takes 24 hours

but it survives, bull terrier,

            my aunt says, “tough”;

another neighbour came round, young kelpy in arms

            nothing to do, it dies

picked the bait just off the road,

            Eagle Bluff. The problem is

they can be anywhere, the crows move them

            and a dried bait can stay toxic

through 40mm of rainfall, 12 months in the semi arid

            conditions of Point Peron, there they lie

like a shrivelled sausage and “what’s the point”

            my aunt says, as we see a cat

scarper across the road, a young one too.

            The bait’s not meant to, but she thinks it might kill the roos.

When it’s dry they’ll jump into backyards

            to get at cardboard, thin, maybe struck

or just drought. Who’s to say the poison pea

            doesn’t then fester in their supposedly immune

guts. “It’s only those who haven’t seen what it does

            that don’t mind”.