Fear

Who puts claws on the crab’s arms?
The brutality in a shrew’s mouth?
The firestorm in the earth’s heart?
We know what they are.
We keep them in their cages.
We turn violence to our use.
Does its usefulness attract us?
Lull us to compliancy?
Has us risk ourselves
and our children?
I take a census of the stingers
and bites in my garden.
Review the sadism
offered on the television.
Note the pets we keep for comrades
at the risk of their jaws and predations.
This is our life.
What is in our life,
and we look on from our parallel world
and ask,
why are we afraid?