Ripper

He brings me wild things,
wild things with wings.
He leaps into the still and silent sky,
to murder my metaphors.

He holds them in his mouth a while,
then lays them out before me on the floor.
Death is his gift.

Yet still I hope for the things with feathers.
Still I cradle them. Their tiny hearts beat rhythms in my hand.
Still I carry them outside, and stroke their heads and place them on the ground.

With whispered apologies I retreat,
to watch them from the window,
to pray they'll fly away.
Sometimes they do.

Sometimes we bury them.
As cold and stiff as cardboard boxes.
Crosses made from twigs pushed into soil
beneath the bushes they were born in.

And I scream at him and scold him,
lock him in and shut him out,
no longer welcome on my knee, my bed, his head pushed in my palm.
And I hate him but I love him though I hate what he has done.
And before too long he's back beside me, his face against my own.
And I forgive and he forgets
and balance is restored.

Then he brings me things,
wild things with wings,
and lays them on the floor.