At first I admired you:
How cunning of you, to be
the same deep green
as the leaves you inhabit,
to have those tasteful stripes
of red and that jaunty horn
on your tail. But then
I saw how you had ravaged
my tomato plants.

I couldn’t kill you; plucked you
instead from your leafy perch
and flung you first
onto the grass, then
when you refused to go away
I hurled you onto the steaming
asphalt, a few warm red orbs
thus saved from your rapacious
teeth, but you kept coming back.

Now I hunt you down,
turn over every leaf, inspect
each stem. Now I see
how winsome you are at first,
a little green thread far smaller
than a stem. I pull you right off
the leaf and crush you
under my shoe. I find you
when you’re older, not yet
a chubby bus but nearly so
and I tear you off that ruined leaf
and smash you into the dirt.
I can now say that I know
how you would look as jam: 
mint green and spreadable.

From Wild Domestic (Pearl Editions, 2011).
Used with permission.