There's No Safety After Dusk

Love softened eyes,

Sleepless,

Till dawn of the third day.

Undereyes gray

While the sun sets under,

Hiding the freshly laid traps.

Shadows conceal the steel teeth in the leaves

On the ground

Where the hunter has set them.

Soft steps

Fox steps

Barely touch that forest floor

For safety may come after dusk.

But the steel lays waiting, taught at its springs,

Though hunters aren’t always the killers.

Evelyn, dear fox,

That mirror in your room

Won’t show you the image

Of beautiful innocence scarred,

Scarred from self-destruction

(Your self-destruction scarred your innocence).

Those marks on your wrists, they’re barely cat-scratches.

Were you too afraid to pressure the blade,

Dear Evelyn?

You fall for the hunter

Who stets traps without a victim

In mind

Or the aforementioned intention to kill

And yet you put

Yourself in the path

Of the rifle that rests in his hands.

He’ll stroke your beautiful coat when you’re dead.