Shaping the dark

The mind reposes, and a girl nearing four once more
can't sleep through the night.

And her parents tell her this time she cannot come back
to them, she must return to her room.

She hates them for this.
All kinds of monsters begin to scare her.

And the next night the girl begs to be saved from monsters,
but her parents say no, and the girl cries and cries

and her parents feel cursed.
The monsters grow in their numbers, one becoming so scary

she is even funny; and the girl, stunned by the silence
of evening, walks for hours through the halls of her home.

She looks in nightlights and in streetlights
and in moonlight for shapes that will one day dress the dead.

And when the shapes move, they quiver bright with sound.
This is a comfort to her. This is her pleasure in them.

With them, she begins singing.

 

Poems by Forrest Hamer: