Friday, January 21, 2005

Poetry: The Martyr

The Martyr

And so she waits.
Her nostrils flare as brown eyes narrow and lock upon the Thing.
The chatters of the night a cacophony of thunderous sound to her and yet
wholly unnoticed to itself as it sings along its life of gentle noises.
Each movement of the Thing is discriminated evenly and coolly in her mind
and separated from the backdrop of the night so that when the time comes
no distraction exists.

The Thing will give her new life.
It's heart will pump it's own blood out upon the ground as she holds it firmly in her jaws.
And she will take because she must.

And so she tightens.
Every muscle becomes a trembling rock.
Her head drops low, her vision clear and locked, her ears begin to hear
only the rushing of her own blood being squeezed into her brain by the
Tightening of her limbs and stomach and back.
The night is gone. There is only the Thing. Naked and alone.
Not waiting. Just steaming moonlit breath into the night.

She fills her lungs one last time; her vision reddening the breath of the profiled Thing in her eyes.
Her back arching high and so alive, her nerves become like needles,
and her mouth drops slightly open to form an almost mirthful smile.
She will take because she must.
But she will feel the feeling again tonight because she can.

And so she springs.
No sound. No violence.
Beautiful surges of power unleashed freely, even carelessly,
for the thinking is behind her.
Reduced to pure, efficient Act, the deed is art.

The Thing looks lazily over as it detects the growing, silent blur.
It's last breath is not a large one; a quickly taken, startled thing
that even holds the smell of the onrushing cat.
The impact is a deceptively gentle exchange of power
that tumbles them together among the ferns like playful lovers.
In the instant before the jaws closed, it might even have been a game.

The Thing will live for a few minutes more but will not breath again.
It's life will ebb in silence.
And the last things it knows are the warmth of it's own blood
and the sound of the gentle breathing of the cat in the blind, and
now completely silent, night…
as she waits.

No emotion lives here.
But the coldness of the narrow eyes affords the death a certain dignity
that it could not have had with the most sincere pity or kindness.

A space is filled.
A life is lived.
A cat walks lazily along to find a comfortable place to sleep.

-jt

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