Monster

Who sets the giraffes on fire, strips the maidens bare?
Who shovels corpses into a watery square?
Who puts breath into a breasted horse-headed bust
And grinds all of mankind's fillings into gold dust?
(We knew the real monster at once — failing student
Who could dissect a soul with a few rude insights,
Trepan their insecurities, vices, and fears.
He'd laugh as he gave each of them the treatment.
They'd laugh, but each felt secretly he might be right.
Too timid to see the truth, they were his mirrors.)
He gathers at red draped altars to contemplate
Not who we are but what perversions to create.
The monster exists to give us a thrill, a scare,
Which is why we invented him -- no one is there.