At His Master’s Feet

Antoinette F. Winstead

January 5, 2022

He knew his master’s killers, 

that’s what family say,

had to have known the men 

who tied his master to the chair,

otherwise he’d have defended him, attacked; 

instead, he kept watch all night, 

until discovered, whimpering in distress 

at the feet of his master’s charred body.

If he had voice, 

he’d have confessed his regret, 

having watched his master’s murder.

But how could he have known 

what they planned to do,

these men he knew, 

who scratched his ears and fed him bones?

After all, how many times

had they shouted at his master

laughed, and called him names, 

why would this time be different?

So, he let them tie his master to a chair,

thinking his struggles a game,

even as the men showered him in gas, 

struck a match, dropped it in his lap, 

engulfing him in flames. 

Confused by the comingling 

of the men’s laughter and 

his master’s anguished screams, 

he watched bewildered 

as the flames consumed his master, 

while the men jeered and taunted.

And when the men finally left, 

leaving the smoldering remains,

he curled up at his master’s feet, 

expecting him to rise again,

the loyal dog who mistook his master’s lynching

as just another night with friends.

Antoinette F. Winstead, a poet, playwright, director, and actor, teaches film and theater courses at Our Lady of the Lake University where she serves as the Program Head for the Mass Communication and Drama programs. Her poetry has been published in The Ekphrastic Review, Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas, Voice de la Luna, and the 2022 Texas Poetry Calendar . For her poem “Life Is” she has been nominated for a 2022 Pushcart Prize by the editor of Jerry Jazz Musician.