Cautionary Tale of Girls and Birds of Prey
Once there was a girl who knew the hawk's eye
was on her,
the perching branch in the oldest oak loomed
outside
her bedroom window. In the hunting time, the girl
ran
between the house and barn to do her chores.
She ducked
at any sudden shift in the wind and stifled her
need to cry,
a sound she knew from mice, chipmunks, and
rabbits.
Only the snakes went quietly when plucked from
the grass,
but she knew their writhing was a form of
screaming.
Soon, her father grew impatient with her fear and
How does the structure of the
poem contribute to the building of
suspense about the outcome?