I posted Snail Trails on January 12, 2011. It carried a report about the morning I was the scourge of Berkeley snails.

I just reviewed a sonnet I wrote about that experience. To tell the truth, I think the number of dead was more like 30. But other than that, I am telling the truth. Here it is.

I slaughtered 8 and 40 healthy snails
along the way to work. The drizzle stopped
but walks were wet for rain-enabled trails
of slime. Beneath my feet their cases popped
a satisfying crunch: emphatic end
to garden-lacing Berkeley escargot.
Perhaps a foxglove will not have to bend
for that, and maybe multiples will grow.

I flattened curving beauty then, around
each formless alien, and left a pool
of ichor on the walk. Upon that ground
the next day showed the signs I had been cruel
to snails. But in a week my walk supplied
no evidence of pseudopodicide.