Midnight Day Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Are you the one with the blank eyes in the dark?
I saw you when I was very young,
And you used to call to me from the black corner
Of the living room when I tried to sleep….
Then, I could not close my eyes as your despair
Occupied the entire house, crawling predatorily
Over me, a victim caught in your sightless stare—
Claws dancing pinpricks on my tiny spine,
You breathed inside my mind the foul poison
Of fear, and paralyzed me like a thought
Trapped in stone— Like a mollusk searching
For a way back to his shell,
You entered me some midnight day when I
Was too young to fight back. After I had burned
My sister’s legs with a curling iron, and my father
Whipped me with his leather belt, you said,
Let me in, my little sinner, Let me in….
You came in through the eyes, the vulnerable windows—
And you curled around inside, a long slimy tail,
And eyes that blanked the day like a butcher of light,
Wringing deep inside my dearest thoughts
And you settled there, like a parasitical emperor,
Your soot and slime smearing like adulterous fingerprints
On adulterous flesh,
Serving a fetid meal from my skull,
You taught me how to live without the hordes of love.
Inside me still, you find a way to whisper your craven
Words upon this midnight day….