Night Lions

Night Lions

Somewhere between midnight and dawn,
I find myself wide-eyed. I would swear
I heard heated sniffing, but all is now quiet.

The lids are not heavy, but
the eyes are prickly fruit,
and I’m feeling tomorrow
threaten to slap my face.

Hot tea calmed me at nine
but wreaks havoc at three, and
I’m roused by the teeming floodgates;
I value the bed sheets too much
to risk their dignity.

At ten past the hour
I am back in my dent,
studying the walls and ceiling.
Invisible spiders weave their webs,
but I know they are there, working and smirking.
In a fine shred of nightlight,
there are only blacks and grays,
in woolly, ominous shapes,
pulsing quietly in each dark corner.

Why is it that the dead come alive at night?
What is it about the dark that brings them home?
The faces of ancient loved ones horrify and
mock me in the darkness when I’d believed
they’d held me dear all those years before.

The sound of the house twitching is
the herald of doom that looms.
The moans and groans of stairs and walls
possess the power to stop this fair heart from beating .
In the daylight hours, I feel nothing, but
in the night I’m lying bloodied in the coliseum;
the night lions circle me in want.

My parents will die and leave me orphaned
and at once I’ll be abandoned and twelve.
I will not cope, and I’ll lose the use of my legs,
growing grey-haired in pigtails,
nothing ever feeling the same again.

My love will stop breathing.
He’ll be waxed like fruit, but
cold like packed cod, and
I’ll freeze next to him, unable to move.
I shall want to pull up the covers,
never letting my feet touch the floor,
praying that he’ll return, if only to take me with him.

I’ll be alone on my birthday, all birthdays,
with a self-baked, teetering cake.
The candles will bleed into the icing,
their light blurred by a swell of tears,
and there will be bergs of pink paraffin
rolling to full stop in the glaze.
One piece will make me cringe at the sweetness
which will be newly toxic to my tongue and
I’ll throw the rest away, trying to remember
how it used to be, or how my name used to sound in song:
I won’t even know how old I am.

One day I’ll be old and lonesome.
The children won’t remember the night feedings
or the scratch-made cookies and
I‘ll be left to fade in an antiseptic corner,
newly christened ‘Sweetheart’ by
the women dressed in white.
I’ll cry softly to the window and they’ll carry on
without offering me a tissue or a comforting word.

I’ll be gone and no one will know.
There’ll be nothing to remember,
no story to kindle smiles.
I’ll be a name on official papers,
a white-haired withered lady who
looked like all the others; indiscernible
with cracked powder for a face and a soiled, floral dress.
I’ll be a breath that breezed through,
moving nothing, leaving each of their hairs in place.

But then the sun breaks through
and my love murmurs dreamily,
his body breathing for him as he sleeps.
I feel heavy and numb,
so I roll toward the yellow wall and
watch as it bursts with victory and butterscotch,
wondering why I never noticed
how soft my feather pillow is.

Drunk and groggy,
I luxuriate in the safety of buttercream sheets
and close my eyes, knowing that
I am still here, the world around me, the same.
Though slightly hung over,
I steal a bright morning hour to sleep,
relieved that no blood has been lost,
and that the night lions have gone to bed hungry.


This time.