It comes to us in the night, instead of sleep,
To taunt us with the trammels of God’s creatures.
Our limits ache within its quiet creep.
The muffled titter of children mocking teachers
And the wind’s cold and cryptic whisperings
Whirl in its whishing shadow-movements, buried
Among our desperately dusted antique things.
Its presence, eldritch, keeps us turning, worried,
Like the off-chance we have arterial clots,
Or that we’ll wake up boxed inside a grave.
Eyes shut, we try to think cool, placid thoughts:
A green shoreline, a Botticelli Love.

And still it comes, comes with weird rhythms, crawls
Somewhere unseen. We fear its touch will change
Us, make us sick. We hear it in the walls,
At its slow work, and the whole house grows strange
With childhood memories.
We do not dream.
We toss like unknown planets in a void.
Inhabited silences edge us toward a scream.
We grasp each other, wild to be destroyed.