Identifying The Beast
by Tiffany Midge
I have listened
for those webbed shadows
casting their stitch
through the house of my body,
thin as a paper cut
dark as a spider's eye.
They arrive from the north
in dream ships
that divide the ocean of my skin
packed tight
with the cargo of my thick fear.
Once tossed overboard
into the water of my sleep
I invite them
to my deserted bed.
Is it the female moon and her chorus
of stabbing stars
that call out to them
like sirens on a cliff
some mocking aria of trickery
pulled from a charmer's purse?
And why do they wear
masks of every lover I need to forget?
I suppose it's the scent
that attracts them.
And in turn their terrible beauty
savage beauty
like the swan elegance
of a woman's throat.
It is these shadows
born of mercy and blood,
fathered by legend
and the peril of ghosts
that limp up from the cellar's
belly, twisting the door's
dark mouth to take scraps
from my table.
It is tragic how they whine
and scrape at the walls
stalk me from room
to room like my twin self gone mad
until I am forced to make pacts with the pack,
offering them my cleanest fear.
The fattest piece
of my heart.
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