Burrowing Habit

My neighbor says he hopes to kill
the woodchucks, thinking they are moles.

How old do you have to be
to want to kill something

so harmless. I tell him
they are good 

for the soil—keep 
it breathing.

My neighbor wants to kill his moles,
and I do not mean the moles burrowed
so gently into his own skin

unless his skin is the earth

which it is.

How much do you have to want it.

I see him later with a sackful,
overtly joyful, going back inside.

I wake some months later,
another panic, longer than most,
and when I tell you

it is like coming up for air

I don’t mean “what a relief”
“breath of all being”
“final clarity” as if 
as if I mean I feel
I feel my pharynx
uncouple the dead soil
we are drowning in 

our own doing

our own undoing.