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Footsteps in Night
Bare feet
slap against the wooden floor.
Pitter patter, pitter patter.
My mind envisions rain.
The thumps
are muffled in darkness,
as they fade past my room
in a litany of echoes,
imitation of taps on concrete.
Heading north, toward
the whiteness of light hanging
off the wall, they run
from the shadows which jump
out of creviced floorboards
like worms thrusting
their heads out of the mounds
of humid dirt outside, beneath
a quater-after-midnight sky.
The light---it illuminates
corners of the bathroom with
the glow of a moon.
Pitter patter, pitter patter.
Rain that escapes the clouds,
crying for relief as it falls.
Enfolded between sheets,
my mind escapes creativity
with distraction at movement
on the ceiling, a blinding
black. Something above
shifting and sliding, a motion-
less fluctuation rippling
in pools of paint. I fall
into a relieved awakeness, away
from the blacker stirrings
in my dreams, as my eyes
strain into the swirling colors
they see in darkness.
From the room next door,
I hear a wet cough. My sister's
footsteps have stopped on
the burning cold linoleum
beneath the nightlight. A soft
creak and a slight moan
of the mattress as my father's
body shifts, and I know he is
trying to fall back asleep, away
from the chill
which stains his blankets on
a warm spring night.
But I know it will take a while
before he will hear the clangs
of the six-thirty alarm. I know
my eyes will keep straining.
I know the footsteps will not return
for a very long time, and I know
that I hear rain now,
an inchoate trickle
from the cupped hands of
overhead clouds; it is fleeing
from the brewing shouts of night
thunder, drenching rooftops
until they glisten, joyfully
pounding on our window panes,
a very rapid (am I crying?)
pitter patter, pitter patter
to evaporate out of
the sea sparkling on a
breathlessly clear sunny
day.
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Favorite Quote:
“For he shall give his angels charge over you, to keep you in your ways. And they will bear you up in their hands…” Psalms 91:11-12