Gorging a Forgotten Fury
Gay Brewer
Welcome the beast to your parlor. He will arrive
anyway, at the last. Feel warmth rise between your
calves. Even through a woolen skirt, you know
his fur. His sides heave. The joy of ascent
and attack. The blood joy. He explains nothing.
That he even comes to you is honor enough.
With a slight frenzy, pressure the ribs between
your legs, capture at once what you otherwise deny.
This shames you, and your heart echoes a more
primitive rhythm. You long to explain the past,
to theorize. But the beast licks and grins, dark
eyes expectant always of the next offered pursuit.
You reach both hands beneath you, out of sight,
and feel the inhuman head, the skull below softness,
the erect ears, the wetness edging blackened lips.
Where will this fable end? In a wooded cabin.
At a fiddle dance on the floor of a lighted forest.
On a red path in snow, the whiskers heavy with ice.
A final feast of myth and annihilation. Offer
all that you have, explain nothing, serve the beast.
