Questions We Answered Next Week

1. A slow break-down,
hydro-fracturing deep
below us now.

2. A drumbeat goes
like thumbprints left on glass
white from soap-film.

These two odd ends
now shoe-boxed together
makes you wonder

about process and iteration,
doing the same things the same ways
as we've always done them
just like our mothers said to.

Only myself

From darkness, at the edge of hearing:

What might be voices
but is just leaky windows,
rubbing door jambs, a dog's sleeping belly-murmurs.

But I reach for the pistol under the pillow
or knife or bat.

Grip the handle
fingering, palming, tightening, tensing
white-knuckling, straining to listen, to hear
what isn't there.

I could get up and check the house.
Jiggle knobs and pad softly.
Peer around corners and squint at shadows.
Climb back into bed, assured.

But I lie still.
Now I am caught between
the terror of being murdered in my sleep and
the terror of looking foolish, if only to myself.