David Holper
Night
Terrors
The faces of sheep
You come into us screaming in the dark:
You’re garbling something about spiders crawling
In your mouth.
Your fingers pry the emptiness
Off your flaming tongue
The syntax, a gorgon knot
Of meaninglessness.
We make the mistake
Of trying to talk,
Asking you reasonable
Sorts of sensibility.
We might as well be mouthing
Mouthfuls of darkness,
Heaps of shudder, jerk
And sweat-stained sheets.
It takes us
Five minutes of these screams
For your irrationality to sink into our thick,
Sleepy skulls.
Finally, we bury you in our bed,
Roll in warm flesh on either side,
And stroke your damp brown hair
Until it smooths.
We breathe you down from
The dizzying height of your terror,
Edging you into the coffin of sleep
After we’re sure you’re gone again,
We stare at one another
Suddenly alert to your mortality
And our own:
This thin line that separates us all from the final
edge
Where the self we know so surely
Fails completely.
Copyright
© by David Holper 2008. All rights reserved.
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