There is now a cloth so utterly black
that all its visible contours are veiled in the dark.
A curious child, I read my favorite book
by the light of a torch, the words displayed in the dark.
Making their winter way home, groping in pockets
for keys, men and their shades in the dark.
On a square of night I am standing alone
as someone lets himself in. Assailed in the dark,
my sentences plunge like meteorites, ignited vows
rain down, trust is betrayed in the dark.
The flash of a bulb blinds my eyes; its delicate filament
hot, an incandescent braid in the dark.
Nocturnal animals wake. I hear the wolves,
see their tapeta lucida, guides in the dark.
Tell me a story of beasts and the heroes that kill them
where I will be safe inside in the dark.
(First published in Antiphon, issue 21.)
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