It is said all they found

was his blue windbreaker

hanging on a tree

a bloody fingernail lodged in its pocket.

They searched for

his axe, his shoes,

drag marks and

tire tracks

and abandoned shacks –

all dead ends.

He had simply disappeared

like morning dew in noon.

His vanishing became a bar story

fodder at camp sites

and night time tales

the story became a legend

legend became a myth

and myth became a fear so potent

that anyone who passed

the woods in the night

swore to have heard screams

and nine fingernails

scratching barks of

the very trees that

seemed to have swallowed

Mr. Hickinbottom.