Only God Knows What
(Wish I could show Janet's Illustration)
By the evening of the sixth day
most creatures had been named;
yes, God was nearly finished,
save one moniker unclaimed,
one destined for an animal
that crawls along the ground,
that only comes out late at night
to make its dreadful sound.
It lives in drains and basements
and it forages like rats;
its teeth and talons are sharp enough
to scratch the eyes from cats.
It slinks and slides on stairways
as you awake in fright,
shivering to the floorboards
that are creaking in the night.
The windowpane stops rattling,
the house goes quiet and still;
and then you hear a furtive sound
inside your window sill,
and you cry out “There’s something there!”
and Mom soothes you; “There’s not!”
but you insist “There is! There is!”
And only God knows what.
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