A Dance with the Sandman

© 1999 Karen Sweeney
All rights reserved.

Fateful kittens flutter with
bright butterfly wings, bedazzling
my eyes until
dark faceless he
is upon me. My feet frantic
on an unseen treadmill, he draws
closer, reaching a fleshless reeking
ragged claw to brush my cheek, perversely
caress my eyelids with
a chill of deep dirt.
Scream chokes my breath until
I sit upright. My clammy hands clutch
a flowery bedspread, not
a cadaverous arm in the sane
white vinyl-sided piece of suburbia where kittens
are bound by Newton's laws and dust lurks
in dark corners.
Prey senses active, cat-eyed search
for signs, jump primitive to the buzz
of lurking terror. As readiness settles seething
on slim shoulders, scaly-tailed night watches
sated with dead-eyed muddy gluttony, as I
stagger under the load of eyelashes grown
suddenly heavy.

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