Night

Before metaphors

— cat eyes slanted wide in doors

hunting eyes on poorest prey

ghosts erased against the day

white bones clicking light

dark in naught but night —

‘Fore all imputed notions

Stirred in syrupy potions

Kettles and chants

‘Mid witch’s rants

A bishop’s wild-eyed cast

Of darkened satan’s masks

‘neath children’s beds

monsters lurking dread

Before wild stories often tell

Of darkness blackened hell

before the metaphors

night was little more

than cooling respite

nothing more

nothing more

Nothing there against to rage

No dread horror upon a page

No ravens’ hollow nevermore

Before night became a metaphor