Our eyes do not shine in the dark.

Leeping from night,

to find my mother's neck,

a proud raptor,

perched atop it's quarry.

All long dark lines and sharp points against the moonlight.

It dove away again, in an elegant black blur.

Taking some important bits of her throat with it—

a spurt of gore,

a valiant but failed

effort to stand.

It gave death

like a parlor trick,

something it was proud to hone

for honing’s sake.

It didn’t need to kill,

just liked to.

Old horrors buried in the dark.

Likely as not,

the worst of us never had names.

No wonder I never heard of something like this—

who the hell was left to tell it?