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Night Terrors
The shadow peers through my window every night,
I hear it before I see it,
a hush of breath against the glass.
I go to the window but it’s empty,
just the black lawns stretched
like a dark skin over the earth.
I feel at a loss to protect my daughter,
her small chest rising
with the oceanic rhythm of sleep.
Could it be—
but it isn’t—
a trick of light, a memory?
I don’t think that I should tell you,
but I am—please believe me,
I would never invent this kind of fear.
The air bends, as if something leans in,
as if it wants me to know
I am not alone.
I press my palm flat to the pane,
the cold glass,
the nothing beyond.
I remember my own mother’s silence,
the way she turned her face from me
when I told her of the man in the hall.
Now my child sleeps while I stand guard,
and the shadow keeps its vigil,
patient, endless,
hungry as night itself.
Copyright ©
James Mclain
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