ON THE WIRE

[Frank Menser]

ON THE WIRE
                                                                                 
By Frank Menser



By the fence that split the hill
In the grass untrimmed and tangled,
It watched the wires threading through
In hopes that something tasty dangled.

Slept the owner of that spot
(A natural beast...or from the pit?).
No explanation can suffice,
Just that death's blood satiates it.

Should it take notice of the road?
There cars and children pass each day.
It sleeps—yet filled with gnawing hunger,
It waits for those who walk its way.

There was a time one walked alone.
She sat upon the fence to rest.
A scratch of cloth, a bit of hair
Who knows what happened to the rest?

A cry was heard one evening past.
No one answered the pitiful screams
They ran from claw marks on the ground.
Rescuers found odd shapes it seems.

It was those tracks burned in the grass,
That made the men all tell their wives
That this spot be cursed...condemned.
To be shunned for their very lives.

It's now been weeks since it has fed.
It waits within the highest grass
The spot stays clear, but on the road
It smells the living things that pass.

Its hunger draws it from its den.
Its starving jaws all flecked with foam.
It waits for something on the road.
Something it can follow home.

[Woody]

mustn't have my stuff here, ed keeps it.