Monster

Zvi A. Sesling

          I have seen lots of monster movies: Monster Mommy, Sister Monster, Monster of the Blue Lake, Forest Monster and so forth. Good fiction and horror. Yet, I always told myself that they just do not exist unless you count serial killers, pedophiles, rapists, mass murderers and the like.

          But then one day I realize I am married to one. It begins when I find Juliette eating a mouse for lunch. Yes, a mouse! It is alive when she first bites into it.

          “I washed it first.” Juliette says. “It didn’t like the water, but I washed it anyway. Then I bit its neck to paralyze it. To be honest I wanted to cut off its head and tail, they are useless, but the rest is pretty good.  I’m glad there’s no cat around to compete with,” she explained in a machine gun staccato.

          The next week she eats cat, the neighbor’s cat. Juliette explains there is more meat on the cat and its tail is edible.

          After that there’s a dog and a cow that she brings home from a dairy.  “What’s next?” I ask as I stand in the kitchen looking at her with a knife in her hand.

          “ A human,” she replies..

Zvi A. Sesling, Brookline, MA Poet Laureate (2017-2020), has published numerous poems and flash/micro fiction and won international prizes. A five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he has published four volumes and three chapbooks of poetry. His flash fiction book is Secret Behind the Gate. He lives in Brookline, MA. with his wife Susan J. Dechter.