Sometimes yeti clans appear
in the yellow-white spheres

of my headlights when I pull
into the driveway,

faces dilated, they are paralyzed
in the halogen glow, the bulk

of their hirsute bodies creased
forward, poised to jump.

I leave the engine idling,
wait to see what they’ll do

if I hold them frozen in my beams,
plastic bags, clenched in their fists,

full of discarded pizza slices
and apple cores picked

from the garbage can on the side
of the house. One might reach

a hand into the bag, sneak a bite
of food to her mouth, chomp

down on cold, tough pizza
with a faraway look in her eyes.

Then they sashay in pairs
toward the shadows, a nonchalant

do-se-do to places I’ve never visited,
to the caves and hollows where yetis

dwell when no one is looking.

8

8

8

The prompt from last week at read write poem is about dinosaurs and monsters.

*Yeti, 1937, from the Tibetan; a small humanoid creature said to live somewhere in the Himalayas.