The way you feel
when you encounter the thing you fear most
grown docile.

The snake
in the freakish, mid-September snow
nothing, in your mind, but long muscle,
gaping stomach, fangs and scales, placid
and pallid by the time you find it
curled into itself, a shiver, barely
lit on a familiar path.

Or the rapist, married now,
spread languorous in an early morning light
the film of sweat on his forehead,
complacent, smoothed into the memory
of his own bed--grown sweet
with things shared there.
Cherished in the life he has built.

Discovering something like pity
for the thing that has eaten you
whole, the dream maw
dripping venom. Discovering

that the thing you fear most
cares nothing for you.

12/11/2013

Posted on 12/11/2013
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