Jack

AN august presence enraptures the hungering masses. . .
and amassed are those who hound the hound–master. . .
by slickened nails, by pendulous ears, by slavering jowls,
which droop rapaciously below the wet of waiting noses.

Rumors follow, like dogs to heel,
and, kin to drivel, reach the ears.

O, how the rumors sputtered on the tongues of the folk—
from estates to corridors of squalor in the town of Men—
O, how they captured the concern of its rustic outskirts—
—maybe you've heard.

Maybe you've heard: here comes the tomboy huntsman,
the writhing–woods trod; the "crack!" of twigs crossed—
—the baying of dogs.

Maybe you've heard: the snarled tresses entwine below
the shadow of the helmet, rumpled to tousled ringlets;
the blushed blonde cascade stains like bruised berries;
mayhap the curls do coil corralled in an elegant knot—
—mayhap not.

Maybe you've heard: the bloom warm as rouge effloresces
to the face of the figure—burgeons softer than cheeks aged
to leather.  If ever the curve of some smirk snakes the lips,
the knobby knuckles ache for the quakin' gauntlets tender,

then, and dare I say it,
poise possesses missus

HOUND
Jacqueline Bane
MASTER

"There's the wrong of it, sir,"
insists a begrudging drawl,
"Just JACK, I beg you, sir.
"I swear it o' nothin' at all."

What doll quits grace, and for wild game?
Who brawls like fits—for brawling's sake?

Say, who trades fists for scrapes,
parades the scars like keepsakes,
trophy crown etched by canines?

Say, who picks bones like naming battles,
if not a foxhound and her spitfire master,
from whose shadows come hellish strays,
four or more eyes ablaze (hell be raised)?

If Furies be—then so do buck and tod shy away:
but for the scent trail tailed by beasts of prey. . .
but for the sting of the arrow strung—or fear. . .

. . .of dog—

. . .or Bane?