“Nightmare�

In the white bed
this too dark creature nests,
litters her yelping young
upon my breasts.

Dreams are the thicket.
In them, wearing masks
of my familiar faces,
she dissembles.

Trembles in every image
calls my falcon
which falls, a feathered stone
to her white wrist bone.

Twists me like wire,
stretches me tight and thin,
a black skeleton stark
among flowering apples.

Or, an appalling valentine
of lace and hearts
hot and frilled,
abandoned in the sun

do I become
at the dark bitter wish
of this night-walking
anxious alchemist.

Sometimes she smiles at me
as if I were
her own face
smiling in a mirror

and she rehearsing
sweet looks in my eyes
of barley sugar
and of butterflies.

Yet should I sleep forever
she would eat
my beating heart
as if it were a plum

did she not know
with terrible wisdom
by doing so
she would devour her own.