is waiting there among the petunias,
all desiccated gurn & spindled bones,
fixing its scantly eyeballed gaze
on the neat dining room window,
darkening the air with black homily & splendid curses,
appearing so much like the cover of a horror film
sitting on a high shelf in a nineties video shop,
catching the eye like a fistful of blades
or a word etched in blood on a misted mirror,
but too late! Because here it comes
like an early Nick Cave song or Ovid’s Metamorphosis.
Oh, the violence of it, suddenly behind me
with a chloroform-soaked handkerchief &
a neatly-prepared cable tie,
so wholly unexpected but for all that
so entirely predictable, as I linger
here conspicuous & naïve
in this ripe, candle-scented parlour,
polite society pelmetting the curtains
& accenting that senseless wall blue
with secretive gestures & discreet murmurs
while these scatter cushions yearn to smother themselves.
Now it takes hold of my shoelaces & I slide across the carpet,
prone between the bawdy legs of the dining table,
unable to catch the bright white tablecloth to save myself,
or at least draw some attention to this
quite ridiculous predicament I find myself in
as we move at astonishing speed down the hallway,
through the door & I am now the thing
that goes bump in the night, down each stone step
& into the garden over the crazy-paving
away through the front gate, its dry hinges
sounding the alarm of see, I told you so,
no good would ever come of this.