After The Piper Poem by Belle Wassermeister

(Poem by Kolette Montague)

Not willing to heed that flute,
I kept to my hole, piled refuse,
gnawed bones, slurped marrow
to drown out the tune.
I begged others not to follow
that pied-patterned devil
whose poisonous melody flowed
and flowed and flowed...
I offered corn kernels for their ears,
nipped tails as they skittered,
warned them of unknown plagues.
But the melody, that melody---
those damnable notes
seeped into skulls, made us wild with want,
forced feet to patter on, on, on,
calling, pulling, twining within...
No! No! I would not go.
I could not go.
'Stay! ' I cried. 'Stay! '
but out they went on their way
never minding the wide sky, the cobbled road,
the deep, black, roiling waters.
I nibbled my own toes to keep from
tracing his tracks,
tweaked out my whiskers for distraction.
Even when their drowning shrieks fractured
my heart, I stayed --- held my ground --- shuddered
again and again. I kept to my hole.
Now I sit in the dark alone,
in the silence ---
wondering and gnawing,
gnawing and wondering.