'Morsel' by Robin Knight

You watch me like a cat watches

a spider. I see myself in your

mouth, a single leg my protruding

goodbye. Your needle teeth

puncture me. I imagine tastes,

textures: crunchy at the ends,

soft in the middle, the sticky

popping of my reproductive

organs, tart bile, the rank

unctuousness of my entrails,

uncooked andouillette awash

in your saliva. Death by enzyme.

You’d remember me for the time

it takes to lick my taste from your

muzzle, to clean your claws

with your tongue. Nutrients

digested, you’d find a patch

of loose soil somewhere

in the neighbourhood

(for hygiene, not too close)

to dump me, to bury me

with careless scratches

in a shallow grave, then wander

off to fixate on some other

unsuspecting creature.

They should put a bell

around your neck.

Copyright. Robin Knight.

Robin Knight is a mixed-race writer, based in Sussex, England. His poetry has been selected for publication by Rattle, The North, The Perch, SOUTH, Filling Station, The American Journal of Poetry, Griffel, The Dewdrop, The Whirlwind, Halfway Down the Stairs, Haunted Waters Press, Visual Verse, Artificium, Beyond Words, The Bangalore Review and others. He has written for Psychologies Magazine and True West and co-authored with Xanthe Gresham-Knight a book of Children’s Folk Tales for The History Press. His first Novel Coyote, a literary fiction set in Northern Mexico in the early 19th Century is seeking a publisher. Visit him at https://www.robinknightwriter.com/