We name you
as if you’re the drifter
hanging around the local pub.
Mam’s hoping
that you’re hungry and harmless
as other guys who blew through.
Last year’s prize,
scrounging smokes and beer
turned mild, a neutered mimulus.
The harvest’s in
and tumbleweeds sweep dust
then pause, entangled, on our stoop.
You’re nobody
we’d care to know but strangers
blowing in warrant watching.
We eye you
sideways checking on
our daughters and our sturdy locks.
Move on now.
Shoo! Propitiation
keeps us safe and we believe it.
The last one
turned malevolent was years
ago. Then murder cut its swathe.
This season
there’s a surfeit, hauling howls
that deafen us. We hunker down.
We name you.
Aren’t homicidal urges named
influenced by an honest plea?
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Vera Ignatowitsch is a poetry addict from Toronto. Her poems have been published in a variety of publications, including New Verse News, The Lyric, and San Pedro River Review.
