Drawing by Judith Wolfe
James Gillard Poem



      THE STALKER

      It is out there, stalking me.
      covert, patient, waiting.
      It caught my scent at the start,
      nuzzling around my afterbirth.

      My spoor's stayed sharp,
      still bright in the nostrils...
      nothing personal, no parlaying,
      just the incessant blood-sport.

      Death is the ego's circuit breaker.
      And I'm anything but comfortable
      about annihilation it terrifies me,
      an animal transfixed in death's headlights.

      We each of us have a stalker.
      don't know when it's going to call.


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