Day 05 - Chalicothere

Sounds come out at night
that won't be stopped and searched for ID,
come out in gangs, or beat groups,
play at being percussive. Strut, skirmish,
and limp off. Like the hyenas in Harar.
Sometimes returning for more,
maybe with others like them.
Long dead sounds, ghost sounds,
hunting for ears.

Tonight the floorboards judder
in answer to a dull thing, deep down.
A homp or a doom or a dumm.
The five floor building hiccuping,
dislodging the elevator from its shaft.
A hammer ringing the basement's walls.
A ram, bringing its head down on a gate
again and again, its body an arm, its skull
a murderous fist.
It is someone butting open
a hidden trapdoor, a locked trapdoor,
the key fumbled and dropped, tinkling,
despite a kata of snatches,
down through the dogpile of strata
tunnelled out below.
Most of all, it is the distant approach
of a frightened chalicothere,
tenderising pavement with its knuckles.

How long it has been going
when it stops, I couldn't guess.
But suddenly there is just me
and its echo: in my ribcage,
boxer blows.