Curiosity Killed the Cat

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Zaynab Khan

 

Did curiosity kill the cat

Or was it complicity

Or compromise?

Perhaps all three plotted together.

 

The three villains tossed

The body bindle like a hot potato,

Ensuring the cat would not be let out of the bag.

It was the terrifying feeling of

when the water from the faucet suddenly turns hot.

 

A rustling came out of the bindle.

A question remained:

Was it dead?

Was it alive?

Fury rose in the villains’ hearts

At the docks

Ready to toss the evidence.

 

Waves oscillated functionally

around the crime

Crashing louder, louder, louder

Like courage beating a drum.

 

The deed done

The fiends disappeared into the night,

The waves rocking, crashing,

Trying to scream their secret.

If curiosity killed the cat,

Why can you still hear the waves?

 

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Zaynab Khan graduated in May 2021. She is  from South Brunswick, NJ.

Zaynab wrote this poem in Joanna Fuhrman’s Introduction to Creative Writing class in Fall 2020. Fuhrman selected the piece for inclusion in WHR.