Oni

The club hit the gate before the horn showed. An oni filled the Japanese dark, huge, tiger skin, a demon of the old feast and the old fear. People set down what they were carrying. They kept an oni gift of that height. It comes back in oni playing cards that bruise the quiet of a table, in an oni notebook whose page wants a heavier line, in an oni postcard of the horn and the lifted club. The gate holds. The club does not lower.