We were delighted to receive this wonderfully animated poem from one of the youngest readers of our site, 11-year-old Mila Beard. She was asked to write about a predator as part of her English homework and if she’s cooking up work like this now, then we think the literary world just may be her oyster…

The Stoat
A poem by Mila Beard

An outsider.
Flank divided into reddish brown and cream.
Soft looks melt hearts, but belie a will to kill.
Jack or Jill, zigzags up the hill.
Upright as a periscope; scoping the landscape.
Living on the margins in Border Country.
Bounding the boundaries.
Around fields, under hedges and along walls.
A life on the edge.

As winter turns everything white, his inner killer chameleon is unleashed turning him Ermine.
Transformed, he has the coat of a King.
His black tail, the jet tip of a killer arrow.

Pelting along, tracking his prey.
A savage assassin, with only one aim.
Killer, with his own contract.
His prey pays the bill for something they didn’t order.

He attacks from the flanks, outflanking his prey.
Teeth like guillotines sink throat deep.
Past his snow white fur drips perfect spheres of glossy blood from just one bite.

Blood letting, bloodthirsty creature stuck in a world of his own isolation.