Hierophany

I thought I heard the sound
of someone tapping on a plate,
the sound of someone
finishing a bowl of cereal.

The kitchen window —
someone climbing in,
causing the blind string to hit
the dishes in the drying rack?

I am bolt awake now,
no sense in ignoring this
call for a second time.

I am up, naked, and rushing in.

Amid shadow I see no one
standing in the kitchen,
or climbing through the window.
But maybe a rat, licking
dinner plates clean?

I pull the cord on the fan-light.
I am awash in a burst of light;
can feel the heat of it immediately,
knowing I am shabbily nude in the middle
of my kitchen, fair to anyone looking this way
at three-thirty in the morning.

I turn the light back off;
there is no rat.  There is nothing.
There is only mystery,
perhaps a dialect of fridge I do not know.

My veins are thumping, my head swirls
with the blank sound, the light, the image
of a man climbing through the window,
a rat lying in the drying rack.  I go take a seat in
a reading chair, sick with paranoia.
Sleep is hard to fathom.

The floors creak, the fridge hums.
Alarm clocks provide most light.  The blinds
are down.  The moon is not full but waning.
I realize now I will not sleep again until daybreak.

There is a small knife in the drawer to my
immediate left.  It is a sharp knife I found along
a clear water creek in the middle of Tennessee.
The fridge pops again.  My wife rolls over yonder in bed.
I wish I were asleep.  Tomorrow would be better
for it.  More pops, similar to the plate-tapping
sound.

Elsewhere a car on the street, going somewhat fast.
It could not possibly be delivering the paper.

This entry posted by J Rand : 18:14