THE THING
After it took the farmer’s arm off
nobody would go near the thing,
as if it weren’t to be trusted now.
But it couldn’t just be left sitting there,
the neighbors said, so they hired a guy
to come out with a backhoe and bury it.
When he came home from the hospital
the first thing the farmer wanted to know
was what a mound of dirt was doing
behind the shed. When she told him
they’d buried it, he said, “What the hell’d
they do that for? Worked, didn’t it?”
After it took the farmer’s arm off
nobody would go near the thing,
as if it weren’t to be trusted now.
But it couldn’t just be left sitting there,
the neighbors said, so they hired a guy
to come out with a backhoe and bury it.
When he came home from the hospital
the first thing the farmer wanted to know
was what a mound of dirt was doing
behind the shed. When she told him
they’d buried it, he said, “What the hell’d
they do that for? Worked, didn’t it?”