for a moment
she stood smiling
in her pink pleated dress
plastic ponytail holders
gleaming in the sunlight

the rest of the morning
she spent skipping
and singing songs
wherein she was mary,
and running her fingers
sticky with candy through
his dingy knots-
off white but pure
as the love of the child

surely she was the first She-pard
to ride mutton in a skirt
but as the sun rose higher in the sky
the Shepard was lured away

and it was then,
sometime after a grilled cheese sandwich
while she was safely tucked away
for her two hour nap
that those she was raised to love
showed their true selves as wolves

saccharin smells of fleshy fallacy
awoke her from the
sheep counting slumber
and as the sun was beginning to set
she rounded the corner,
leaving childhood behind

fear froze her tremulous tears
her head cocked only once to the right
mouth slightly open,
though she did not scream,
her glazed, gentle gaze fixed upon
hind legs bound by rope
and slung over her rusty swingset,
mary's sheep suspended and slowly spinning-
throat and torso slit

vacant black eyes no longer blinking,
death's gray film growing inward from their cusp
blood trickling from the neck she loved to pet,
into a pool of muddy blood,
swarming with flies and bees
the scent of game-
sticky and sickly and sweet
surrounds the small Shepard,
sighing as she succumbs to sorrow

off in the distance
the real animals
are done digging,
resting on their shovels
and licking their chops
tomorrow she will fast, whilst they feast
on servings of young mary's misled sheep