Perfect Execution. A Poem.

Perfect Execution
A Poem.
J.Mann


A vicious thing is hunger unserved.

Yet I lust for her like a hunter for a hare.
I preen my hounds and mount my horses and survey the land with the deepest echo of anticipation resonating in my gut because I'll flush her out of here.
Oh yes.
I'll snatch a glimpse of tawny haunch and skirt my quarry keenly. It may take hours. Perhaps I'll lose a morning, an afternoon, but always by the gloaming do I spy her.
Nibbling at the edge of my sanity.
Freezing in my gaze.
I raise the bow and take a deep breath.
It draws with an almost imperceptible creak, but I see her ears twitch. She doesn't move, but there is a quiver in her leg. I detect a shift in the very air surrounding us. A thickening of pollen. It turns to impatience in my mouth. A taste of blood I lick from my lips as phantasm.
I feel the scraping at the back of my neck.
It is almost too much to bear.
This moment.
Preceding everything and closing out a circle of failure with its completion.
A thrill runs from the thorn of her tooth, pressing possessively into the back of my throat.
A slow, itch of sweat, dribbles down the side of my face, but still I hold, and then,
a sharp intake of breath.
My pupils widen and engorge on the last dwindling rays of light.
I let go.
The arrow wedges itself in her side. I believe I see it directly pierce her heart
in the synchronicity of her fang sliding, hooklike into my jugular
the tooth slipping inside my skin like a hand into a silk glove
she's inside the vein, the tendons rippling out of her way like heavy red curtains
the artery, a golden cord she lets the bone pluck once, almost teasingly.
I imagine I can hear its thrum, a soft note that grows in ambience like a coal producing heat.
Then the cruel fang slits the artery, and I feel the cold, impossibly foreign discharge of venom into my bloodstream.
I slide backward.
A poppet for her to release to the ground.
Where I lie, next to my delicious prize.
My own demise.
A perfect execution.
A hunt for death.