Crickets For The Water Dragon Poem by Sharlie Goddard

Your arrive by post, ordered on-line.
Do you know that you are condemned?
No, of course not.
You were born in a clinical environment.
Maybe the result of some genetic experiment?
You contain more vitamins.
But your legs are probably weak
Atrophied.

As I open the oblong cardboard box there you all are.
Hiding from the LIGHT.
Panicked under thoughtful egg cartons, provided for the journey.
Carefully I slide the door to paradise open,
Innocents entering with the dragon.
Will I watch?

Oh yes.

A morbid fastanation takes over
And I study the lizard’s eyes.
It is quite motionless.
Still, frozen.
Dead?
Then so fast I almost miss the sacrifice
One cricket is gone.
I see the legs dangling,
Sprottling from an
Archaic mouth.
I am both appalled and satisfied.
A pink undulating grotesque tongue
Envelopes and arranges
With a dislocating yawn

She cocks her head,
zeros in,
And……Snap.


It will take about a week for
The arrival of the next carton.