A Story in Poetry

A tale, from middle to middle, in verse. The beginnings of these tales often cannot be remembered...and their ends often cannot be seen...

The Hunted

There is safety in being the hunted,
Long hidden behind tall grass,
In knowing and expecting
Life
to translate as
Attack.
He stalks me silently,
My hunter,
From the safest place I know,
Creeping from dark corners
of our neat, suburban home.
His eyes track me
in the kitchen
and though he's wearing
different clothes;
clearly a wolf now
less the lamb I used to
know him by
his softness and his gentle, contented bleat
Now where once were cloven hooves
claws exude his feet.
And he licks his lips and follows me
My hunter, to the stairs,
Snapping at my retreating back
Holding tight, allowing slack,
He bats me back and forth,
The mouse,
The cat.
The play resumes
and culminates
in the upstairs rooms,
a final blow,
the fall,
the pounce,
the crushing pressure of every
stone, pound, ounce,
He holds me,
my captor,
and I don't struggle,
let it be.
I don't bide my time and wait
For sleeping vulnerability,
To burst forth and exploit
My opportunity,
For being so long in chains I've grown
Accustomed, admittedly,
and as much as change is welcome,
my freedom frightens me.
I lie still and breathe
until I'm sure he will not see
and sliding silently to the back door,
where I may taste the air,
I mind my leash
Lest I should yank it on the stairs.