The hole was certainly not there before.
The poor creature must have made it himself.
Cinched halfway in our fence
                       is a trapped squirrel.

When I awoke Cory alerted me,
Though my eyes were already arrested
By the thrashing, writhing tube of brown fur
And the clods of dirt frantically upturned.
Desperately trying to dig himself down,
He barely scrapes the ground, as his hind legs
Surely dangle behind him, far too thick
To fit through the tiny hole he gnawed out.
After these exertions he stretches, slinks,
And droops like a doll halfway in a chest.

When we approached he became a different
Doll entirely: a ragdoll, a chew toy
Flung against the fence by the jaws of fear.
We got him to take ahold of a broom;
He made a raspy growl as he bit in,
Then he grasped it like a life preserver.
We tried to slowly pull him from the hole,
The sound he made changed immediately:
A sonic squeal of pain and terror, shrill
As the tools the dentist puts in your mouth.

Instead we thought we might work from behind.
I took a peek around Donny's backyard,
But the corner where his back fence meets ours
Is too narrow and is blocked by a tree;
On our other neighbor's side, even more.
I stood on a chair to peer over top:
There's a maybe two-foot no-man's-land 
Full of bramble and dead branches and scrub
Narrowly enclosed by a chain-link fence.
Too much to clear and no room to work in.
We couldn't see him on that other side.

My only idea was a plywood board
That we have resting on the porch's wall;
I thought maybe it could be a platform
To give an upward angle he could climb,
Hopefully out of his predicament.
When that failed I thought perhaps we could use
It to goad him backwards the way he came
By making a reverse ramp—as it's raised 
Parallel to the fence with him upwards,
Might he slide down as if on a drawbridge?
No. This merely squished him against the wall.

It's obvious we can't save him ourselves.
I doubt it's a matter for the police;
I wonder if Fish and Wildlife will help.
I did what I always do when in need:
Call Mom and Dad.
                    Then I called the sheriff,
Who referred me to FWC.
For sure the squirrels are too prosperous
To warrant rescue for conservation.
I searched for some animal rescue groups,
Shelters, and the Humane Society,
But they only made note of cats and dogs.
The free experts are for gators and birds
And sea life in danger of being poached.
Can we afford to call a pest control
Service to save one squirrel from a fence?

Suddenly there came a knock at the door.
Dad had come out this way down SH Drive.
He and I went out for another round,
Surveying the situation at hand.
He brought a pincer which had similar
Results to the broom, as the squirrel squirmed
And twisted in defense we saw the raw,
Red spot where his frantic friction had scraped.
"You think maybe some cooking spray or PAM,
"You got some PAM in the house?"
                                         "No, nothing 
"Like that. I haven't even got butter."
"Do you got any Vaseline," he asked.
"Something like that, yeah I have some lube."
I returned with a little purple tube
Of Astroglide and poured above the spot
Where the wall met his matted, dirt-caked fur.
Dad tried the grabber to give him some help,
But all he could do was helplessly shriek.
We also had a couple metal pipes;
This time I held my plywood board over
The squirrel as a kind of guard while Dad
Put one pipe on top and slammed the other
Into it like a hammer and chisel.
We put our caveman plan into action,
But the fence's vinyl has caveman strength
And resisted the blunt rim of the pipe.
The squirrel squeaked and squealed beneath the blows.
"Poor thing, he's just a baby too," said Dad.
Drops of rain began to muddy the site.
"I think he might be SOL, Nicky."
"Yeah, maybe this is just his last mistake."
"Well, let's see if we can call somebody,"
But we had the same results as before.
Even the pest control number we called
Couldn't be here earlier than Monday.
It's Saturday. He won't hold on that long.
"I'm sorry. I wish we could do something,"
Dad said, looking out the window at him.

We stood in silence for a few moments.
The sad fact is squirrels die every day;
I can't count how many I've seen on roads.
The rain fell on the yard and the poor beast.
His torso hung down, enervated, weak.
Am I resigned to this small creature's death?
I didn't have to be. Dad turned to me,
Exclaimed, "you know what, the clippers'll do,
"And I got a pair of pliers. Let's go."

The shower drizzled out by our return.
I again took up my trusty plywood;
Dad gripped his clippers by their green handles,
They look like oversized safety scissors
Crossed with a pair of pliers. I knelt down
And placed the board over the squirrel's back,
Pressing down so slightly to give Dad space
To insert the clipper. He whimpered out
But the vinyl being sheared away must
Have brought some comforting hope to the dear.
The job's not done yet though; Dad cut a strip 
Of fence lengthwise then put the pliers in.
He began to pull and twist the white wall.
Some nervous squealing and a yelp of pain,
The pliers snagged a tiny tuft of grey
As they wrenched back the fence's siding.
This, the last pain of his imprisonment,
I'm sure the animal was glad to pay.
The dirt and grass rustled to our left.
As sudden as sunlight he had darted
Out from the wall, under the wooden board,
Straight to a nearby tree for his refuge.
He rested for a little while, then left,
And that's the last we saw of the squirrel.

I screamed expletives in pure excitement!
I knew this already but, "Dad, you're a
"Fucking hero!" We embraced in relief,
And as I moved the wood board from the hole
I gasped, understanding why I couldn't 
See his rear on the fence's other side:
There wasn't a hole leading through at all.
"The poor little guy must've fell in here
"Somehow, one of these caps must be missing,"
He told me as he pointed up the post.
"We'll take care of that later. We did it!"
An admittedly proud thankfulness swelled
In my heart. We hugged again, then gathered
Up the tools and muddy pipes and such things.
"Thank you for saving the squirrel."
"We had to; I felt for the poor baby."
With his work done, the hero returned home.
I brought myself to Cory in triumph,
"We did it together, we saved him, dear!"
"You and your dad saved him. I did nothing."
"That's not true, you were the first responder!"
My boy always minimizes his role,
But everyone was important to this.
All took part today in saving a life.