NIGHTMARE

"Tell me why you can't sleep,"
my mother says, and the white
Christmas trees sparkle and faintly
shiver. An ornament is in my hand,
smooth and hard: a wooden rabbit
with a hook at the top.
There is another man at our table:
thin and demure with silver eyes and grey hair.
"Finally I understand,"
he coos,
"How the soul moves from a small sick thing
on this plane towards something destined and vast
on the next." His voice is a limp breeze
blowing a plastic tarp. The rabbit
falls to the floor and breaks once at the neck,
and then again at the right ear.
I know someone is going to die. I'm afraid
that it's me.
Then I'm ophelia in viscous water,
haloed by motes of light and dead leaves.
Parts of me wash away towards some violent rift,
some maelstrom or drain.


Somewhere else, a real rabbit,
No,
a hare is running through a field, a storm breaks
behind him. Sheaves of grass whip the ground
like monks' flails. Desire is there, she is tall
and dark and holds a compound bow,
smooth and black like a stealth jet.
She pulls back the metal string and shoots
an arrow straight into the sun.
The light goes red.
Drops of blood fall from the sky.
I claw through layers of sleep,
through the thick water trying to scream:
a black bird is flying through canopies
of bare branches, frantic and bleeding.
Its heart beats as a silver coin spins
on its edge, now heads,
now tails; it hits open air
and twists through the wet night.
I am awake.
the rain is falling swiftly outside.