David B. Prather

SASQUATCH

Seeing the monster for the first time is the most frightening experience,

so the eyewitness says.  It changes everything you’ve been told.

__________

 

I remember being too drunk to move, but not too drunk

to be aroused.  I remember a woman I thought was a friend

 

sucking then mounting.  I remember

saying no and whimpering stop.

__________

 

I’ve heard the beast is a man,

a giant apish thing with thick stinking fur.

 

He hides in forest and swamp,

on mountain, under shadow.

__________

 

It took a long time to stop drinking.

It took a long time

 

to wean off of euphoria,

that fuzzy feeling of forgetfulness.

__________

 

The second time you see the monster, it just stands there

staring at you, trying to remember

 

if it was you that night,

if it was you who shared the terror of a chance meeting.

__________

 

I told my friends, but they wouldn’t believe me.

Things like this don’t happen to a man.

 

Men are not vulnerable to anyone or anything.

To which I say to hell with you.

 

To which I’ve spent years standing in the shower

with only the water touching me.

__________

 

And quicker than the seeing is the disappearing.

The monster shifts into fog, behind a tree,

 

into the embrace of undergrowth, briars and brambles and barbs.

It leaves behind a footprint, something larger than would ever seem

 

possible, something you save as a plaster cast and take with you

as evidence.

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