Bête Noire

It blocked her path in the first bad dream

She could make me understand -

Tall and shaggy, with three dog paws

And a little human hand,

Unseen until - here she looked at hers,

Describing in the air

A gesture of menace, or warning, or welcome.

Either it ended there,

Or else she didn't have the words

To say more, at not quite three.

It held out its hand , she said again.

It held out its hand to me .

I rocked her and sang, assuring her

With a mother's instinctive guile

That dreams weren't real and couldn't hurt her,

Knowing all the while

That when she slept, the tick-tick-tick-

Tock of  its stumbling tread

Would shadow me familiarly

And lie down beside my bed -

Accosting me with its rheumy eyes,

Its smell of  damp defeat,

Its matted fur aseethe with fleas,

Its breath like rotten meat,

Its pitiful, imperious

Howl like an infant's, and,

Most appallingly of all,

Its apprehending hand.