Song for Night

Imagination Is a Forefinger between the Eyes

Hiding is all I seem to do: from myself, from the enemy. But doubt never leaves, not even here in this tree. Like a spider busy spinning a web, my mind weaves the night into terror.

What does it mean to hide in a ceiling, in that narrow hot crawl space crouched like an animal smelling my own scent, full of it and grateful for it, while my mother stays below, in what seems like the brightest sunlight although it is only the light of a sixty-watt bulb, waiting to deflect the anger of people intent on murder, my murder, waiting so that I may live, and I watch what happens below and I am grateful that I can smell my smell, smell my smell and live while below me it happens, it happens that night bright as day, but I cannot name it, those things that happened while I watched, and I cannot speak something that was never in words, speak of things I cannot imagine, could never have seen even as I saw it, and I hide and am grateful for my smell crouched like an animal in that dark hot space.

I shake my head. Imagine good things, I say to myself, forefinger pressed firmly between my eyes, block out the horror and imagine good things, I say, but all I can think is that it would be nice to have a hot meal.

I sigh, turn over, and close my eyes, dropping the cigarette into the wet black.