The Night Visitors

They know how to jimmy locks when I'm curled in utero, creep like cats into corners where darkness is deepest, or by the edge of my bed where, freed from sleep's fist- hold, I find them in the silence keeping watch like winged messengers of Biblical times. But they do not bear tidings or pronouncements in rhymes. They are silent by definition, and sure of their mission, you see mouths moving though no sound is made, as when one of their company snuggles close to my body like a lover in bed, whispering wordless secrets left better unsaid. Embodied, but faceless, my nocturnal guests come as close as we get to that Stygian scythe. They are ghosts in the garden, rehearsing their deathwatch when I leave this life. posted for Carolyn Devonshire