She watched from the treeline
\nin the heat of that summer evening,
\na strange ochre colored beast with cotton ears
\nand short front legs \u2013 white,
\nlike she was wearing stockings.<\/p>\n
In my lethargy, I watched back
\nas she crept closer, and wondered
\nof my camera\u2019s zoom setting.
\nAh! It was still in the cottage
\nnext to the half-eaten bowl of porridge
\nand bottle of fresh cream
\nfrom the farmer next door.<\/p>\n
Nice man, that farmer.
\nYoung. A widower seemingly desperate
\nfor the company of his next wife.
\nIt wouldn\u2019t be me, but I was down
\nfor an evening by the fire pit
\nwith his home-spun ginger beer.<\/p>\n
He warned me about a strange cat
\nafter inviting me to dance with him
\nand the fireflies that evening.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s firefly season in these parts,\u201d
\nhe boasted. \u201cMy wife and I made an event of it,
\nuntil that dang cat got to her. Demon cat it was. Black as night.\u201d
\nA fleeting rage crossed his face before he smiled,
\nproud of the fresh cream.<\/p>\n
I never expected to encounter the creature
\nthat afternoon, and I must admit, she was beautiful.
\nA black mask framed her yellow eyes,
\nmaking them pop like diamonds.
\nI would swear I saw a menacing smile
\nbefore she leapt forward to attack.<\/p>\n
BOOM! The cat fell to the ground with a screech
\nthat surely was from the depths of hell,
\nlike nothing I\u2019d ever heard. A rustling to my left
\nsuddenly made me more scared than had the cat.<\/p>\n
BOOM! I thought she was dead,
\nbut the cat had, miraculously, gotten up
\nbefore the farmer could get another clear shot at her.<\/p>\n
Demon cat indeed!
\nShe seemed to fly back into the dark forest
\nthrough trees, vines, and ferns,
\nas if they weren\u2019t there.<\/p>\n
\u201cHold on just a minute so I can check for blood,\u201d
\nHe wasn\u2019t talking about my blood, but that of the cat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know I hit him, but I never can find nothing to track him,\u201d
\nhe said, puzzled. \u201cI hear him scream, but it\u2019s like I hit his
\ndark soul, and not his mortal body. You saw him, didn\u2019t you,
\nthat black cat with the yellow eyes. Same one that got my wife.
\nI had a hunch he\u2019d be after you,
\nso I came to see if I could get a shot at him.\u201d<\/p>\n
I must have been in a state of shock,
\nnot having realized how close I had come to
\nsome sort of immortal death.
\nIt took me until just this week to wrap my head around
\nwhat he said next.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy wife is still out there somewhere, I know it.
\nI see her from time to time, wearing the same ochre colored dress
\nand the white socks I\u2019d given her for Christmas,
\nAnd those godawful white ear muffs, made her look like she had
\ngiant balls of cotton wrapped around her ears.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
She watched from the treeline in the heat of that summer evening, a strange ochre colored beast with cotton ears and short front legs \u2013 white, like she was wearing stockings. In my lethargy, I watched back as she crept closer, and wondered of my…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":189,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[3442,680,156],"class_list":["post-70649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","tag-2020poetrymarathon","tag-poetrymarathon","tag-hour-9"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/189"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70649"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70672,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70649\/revisions\/70672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}