A Work Story Poem by Buxton Shippy

He stood still
For thirty laborious years
To let the blood drip;
Eventually, it stopped
But not before
He lost his mind,
Tangled in a serpentine grip.

She could not cope,
Not with him like this
So she grew wings
And the children,
Trapped in confusion,
Despised the monster
He had become.

In his final hour,
He surmised:
The ordeal would be tolerable
If I had not given my soul.

Over time,
The entity faded,
But not before it duplicated itself.