Words of Prey

Words of prey hunt
smaller words
and simple marks
like full stops, commas
and even the occasional
hyphen, if they happen
to catch one making a dash
for cover.

They nest high in the branches
of paragraphs, or cling
to the edges of margins
and watch,
with a mixture of wisdom
and rage, ready
to drop in an instant
and make their kill.

Words of Prey
hunt only at night;
with a torch they can be seen
skimming the pages of unread texts
for a bracket that’s strayed from its den
or best of all
an exclamation mark
unaware of the danger.
When they swoop
it’s a death sentence,
leaving nothing but three dots in a row…