They came in the afternoon
before I was home from skipping school.
They entered through the screen door,
hid behind the bottles of Black Velvet,
and waited for her to shake awake.
For some unknown carnal reason,
they hesitated, allowing her to put
whiskey in her coffee before leaping out
And cornering her in the hallway
with their fangs dripping with blood
from the last thrill kill.
That’s when I walked in,
right as the attack began,
their fangs ripping into her flesh,
tearing as the sinew of a glutinous thief,
while blood flooded toward the kitchen,
drowning the roaches in the toaster.
Straight for the jugular, they went,
with ease and precision, three against one.
The smaller one tore at her ankle
which she shattered in a car accident,
that may or may not have involved
an unpaid debt to a local drug dealer.
Teeth against bone, fur filled with real red,
visceral violence coincidentally in the dining room.
I repaired to throwing things like a microwave,
and banging things like pots, eventually breaking
the sliding glass door, all the mirrors,
my grandmother’s urn, and my own voice silent.
In the painted foyer beside the VCR,
that Uncle David stole and broke,
the realized eerie thing is,
my mother was silent
and never took her eyes away from mine,
the whole time they tore at her.
When it ended, another day began,
and the beasts headed back to the forest,
there was nothing left;
no blood, no bones, no evidence of life,
just a trailer home and the suspicion
that it might have never happened at all.