by Rollin Jewett
There’s a werewolf in my closet.
I wonder what I did to cause it?
It wasn’t in there yesterday
but now it will not go away.
It’s tried on all my favorite jeans
and read my Boy’s Life magazines.
It’s brushed its face with my new comb.
It’s really made itself at home.
I’d ask my mom to make it leave
but I don’t think that she’d believe
that there’s a werewolf in my room,
using my new comb to groom.
It’s putting on my favorite shoes.
This wolf may make the fashion news.
I’m hoping they will be too tight
but no… it’s got them on all right.
Oh, no! It sees my baseball hat.
This werewolf’s head is way too fat!
It doesn’t fit, I’m glad to say.
But look — it wears it anyway!
I guess it thinks it’s looking good.
Much better than a werewolf should!
It seems to like my Gucci tie.
Well, that’s too bad, ‘cuz so do I.
This werewolf is a cheeky one
to try my clothing on for fun!
Now it’s taking out a game.
Does this werewolf have no shame?
It wants to play Monopoly…
And look… it wants to challenge me!
I will not play a game with it.
I want this werewolf just to quit,
to leave my closet and my home
and find another room to roam!
In my closet this wolf came,
and used my comb, my clothes, my game!
Perhaps I should have picked them up
to keep them from this werewolf pup.
Wait, that’s it! I think I know
a way to get this wolf to go.
I’ll pick up all that’s on the floor…
my closet then will be a bore!
If there’s nothing it can wear,
I bet that wolf won’t stay in there!
So I picked up all my stuff.
Wolfie watched me, looking gruff.
I put my games and toys away —
the ones the werewolf liked to play.
I hung my clothes up with the rest,
against the werewolf’s loud protest.
I cleaned my closet with some care
and all the wolf could do was stare.
And that was it — it left me then,
and has not been back here again.
For I had found a special way
to keep that closet wolf at bay.
Of course, I found out later on
the wolf was hired by my mom.
She’d found a tricky way for me
to keep my closet werewolf-free.
And though I have a sneaky mother…
at least my closet’s free of clutter!
Rollin Jewett (aka Rollin Jarrett) is a playwright, screenwriter, actor, author, singer-songwriter & poet. Rollin’s screenwriting credits include the thriller Laws of Deception and the campy cult classic American Vampire. His poetry has recently appeared in Southern Fried Autopsies, Gathering Storm, Gravitas, and Penumbra and his short stories can be read in Fell Beasts and Fair, Ghost Stories: An Anthology, Open: Journal of Arts & Letters, Vagabonds: Anthology of the Mad Ones, Fantasia Divinity, and Coffin Bell among others. Rollin lives in Holly Springs, NC with his wife and son.
