Pig Newton

 

Pig Newton
Eva Loraine Hammerbeck

A shadow, nothing more,
Darts across my windowed door.
A leaf, a twig, scraping there.
A squeak from my front porch chair.

I struggle to avoid a look
As I settle into my dreary book.
I am lost in reading when I hear
A sound so dreadful, so low, I fear.

I flip the outside bulb on
If someone was there, he’s gone.
I turn off the glaring light,
My house slips back into the night.

Tired, I’m tired. I shake my head.
Maybe it’s best to go to bed.
I mount the creaking stairs,
Each step, my aching back flares.

Once in bed, I embrace the dark.
See strips of moonbeams, so stark.
Soon I’m dozing, dozing off to dreams…
As something scurries across the beams.

Surely it is a mouse, I think
I turn, and, into my pillow, sink.
Then, I pause, to see what moves
“It’s nothing,” I firmly choose.

I am deep in my sleep
When a thing pounces from the deep!
I awaken suddenly, my eyes wide open
My repose, completely broken.

I cannot lift my arms, I find.
A figure lurks above me, outlined
Against the paleness of the moon
What fiend has visited me? I swoon.

When I come to,
As I soon do,
I hear a whirling grinding sound.
I find I’m hog-tied on the ground!

My tormentor is near
Every muffled movement I hear.
“Who are you?” I say at last.
“The time for talking is past.”

“What do you want?” I plea with him.
He laughs softly; I spy his limb,
Long, and hairy and bent
I know now whom hell has sent.

He mocks me from the shadows then
“Little pig, little pig, let me in.”
I see him, fierce with sharp teeth a-grin,
“Not by the hairs of my chinnie-chin-chin.”