The Committee on Village Security
       

We locked him in a cage
and hung that cage from an old tree
down the hill from the village gate

just out of reach of the zombies
who nightly gathered below him
sucking their teeth and wailing.

He smelled good to them
and thus distracted them
from climbing the hill

and attacking us where we slept.
Mornings, we fed him and
once each week, we lowered his cage

and hosed him off. He had been
nothing but trouble to us,
and this seemed like a fair way

of putting a member
of the criminal class
to work for the public good,

though soon enough
the scent of him (and the simple fact
of vanishing populations in the hills)

brought more zombies to our gate.
Another cage was required,
which we filled and hung

from another tree in the valley.
This seemed a sort of mercy.
By day the criminals might

offer each other
a measure of solace or company,
communicating across the grassy distance,

and by night, their presence
ensured security and quality of life
for those of us in the village above them.

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Copyright © 2022 Kevin Prufer All rights reserved
from The Art of Fiction
Four Way Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission