In Shane, when Jack Palance first appears,

a stray cur takes one look and slinks away

on tiptoes, able, we understand, to recognize

something truly dark. So it seems

when we appear, crunching through the woods.

A robin cocks her head, then hops off,

ready to fly like hell and leave us the worm.

A chipmunk, peering out from his hole

beneath a maple root, crash dives

when he hears our step. The alarm spreads in a skittering

of squirrels, finches, millipedes. Imagine

a snail picking up the hems of his shell

and hauling ass for cover. He’s studied carnivores,

seen the menu, noticed the escargots.

But forget Palance, who would have murdered Alabama

just for fun. Think of Karloff’s monster,

full of lonely love but too hideous

to bear; or Kong, bereft of Fay Wray

shrieking in his hand: the flies circle our heads

like angry biplanes, and the ants hoist pitchforks

to march on our ankles as we watch the burgher’s daughter

bob downstream in a ring of daisies.

William Trowbridge

Enter Dark Stranger. 1989. University of Arkansas Press.