The Tragedy of Snails

And Unpaid Rent

Like gypsies They lurch across our property with their trailers and kids hideously decorating our roses and camp in our garden without contract or rent

And thus it came about that the black boots descended and so great was the devastation that the sound of crushed shells and the smells of smashed snails reached to the ends of the rose bushes thereof.

The penalty for unpaid rent is high. Their silver threads like lonely trails led to Eden and death.

First published in English Alive, 1975 (An Anthology of the Best High School Poetry in South AFrica)