Jack's Choice
I've spent the evening hunting, as I'm wont to do
and choosing for tonight an older lass,
I hold the shop door open while she passes through
and as it closes, watch her in the glass
Her face is plain, no trace of paint unlines her skin,
her matted hair is gathered in a bun
Beneath the shabby dress, her frame is overthin,
still, I've decided she's to be the one
I drop my gaze just as she steps into the street
Of which route she will take, I've made a note
My heart begins to pound and I increase it's beat
by fingering the blade beneath my coat
When moments later, I begin to follow her,
the horror I keep hidden shakes its cage
The monster I restrain by day begins to stir
and begs me to unchain it from its rage
She leads me on for leagues but I am not deterred
In fact, I'm quite encouraged by the treck
All bets, I'm not the first this dicey whore has lured,
which gets her one slice more across her neck
She hurries up the walkway of a sodden shack
and after she has shut the sagging door,
I peer in through a dirty window at the back
and see her place her parcels on the floor
No sooner has she done so, when a tiny child,
- her son - appears and dashes to her arms
and it is then, the thrashing beast I've let run wild
is battered back by blaring new alarms
I stand, deflated by this unprovoked retreat
and panicked, try to stoke the rage again
but find my homicidal urges can't compete
with what has just awoken in me, then
A crisis of one's conscience, for one moment, will
illuminate the choice twixt wrong or right
and as it was my BEAST, not HER, I chose to kill,
your cobbled streets are safe.
At least tonight....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Written: June 4, 2021
Contest: Imagism Poetry
Sponsor: Emile Pinet
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