![](https://www.thedriftmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Bazzet-web_5.6-1244x933.webp)
Image by Hollis Duncan
Image by Hollis Duncan
and I did and it was there, hunched beneath the coats,
covered in hair, doing its best to look inconspicuous
and it did indeed smell a bit like woodsmoke and iron,
and I did see something that looked a bit like a talon
draw closer into its body before melting away into the
shagginess in much the same way the markings of a snake
might simmer down into a pile of leaves, hoping the
heavy tread of the interloper might pass, and I sensed
its need to disappear completely and knew it was only
me who could grant such peace, or lash out where its
head might lay, and I made my choice, unswayed, I think,
by the scent of fear and closed the door and looked
to where he lay in bed and said, There’s nothing there.
Michael Bazzett is the author of four books of poetry, most recently The Echo Chamber (2021). His work has appeared in Granta, The London Magazine, The American Poetry Review, The Sun, The Nation, and The Paris Review; his translation of the selected poems of Humberto Ak’abal, If Today Were Tomorrow, arrives from Milkweed in June 2024.