A Deer Caught In The Headlights

• Chloe Leung, Grade 9
• Poetry
• 2022

She pirouettes, leaps, and runs in the spotlight
fleeing the clutches of his preying eyes.
Her hoofprints cry in panic
as her crimson ribbon trails behind.
This, the audience watches.
On cue, she elegantly plummets from grace
and ravenous claws drag her offstage
as the vermilion curtain falls, the lights flickering off.
Backstage, the final act begins.
Her pale dress, stained scarlet
is mangled into shreds
revealing a body trained to dance, to run.
But even bare, she is desirable - not as a beauty,
but as a feast for him, watching in the shadows.
And his savage paws sculpt a skeletal rose
in a sea, perfumed of rust.