Feverlight

(after Poe)

Exhaustion leaves my limbs resting,

fever perspires—caressing my forehead.

My journals on the nightstand,

pen clutched like a weapon,

blessed robe where last it hung.

A shadow in the distance—

billowing thunder gathers the wind in,

until the frames shake and howl.

Weary from travel, a cough took pleasure in a rattle—

and in my swelling chest began knocking on my rib cage.

Each shadow growing longer,

a field mouse scurries yonder.

I wonder if it’s my imagination,

or dreams slinking down the hall.

My robe tie flickers across the bow of my bed frame—

a chill tracing my flesh made me scream.

At the edge, my toes retreat,

to tangle themselves in sheets,

as the mouse—teeth gnashing, eyes lit and flashing—

drags a blush ribbon dancing toward hell.

Come, take this fever with you;

go back through the depths you came through,

and wreck havoc on this body no more.

Yet it ignored my pleas,

and went on with its thieving—

to claim a ring settling on the nightstand.

Glaring without admission,

the bleak creature of my imagination

would not break its stare from me.

This kiss of death upon my temple,

and his malice of torture,

coupled with the knocking—causing gasping—

will be the undoing of this mind.

My pills in their bottle—

I drown them to dull the horror,

and wait for mercy to find me.

When I wake, low clouds linger;

my ring sits upon my finger,

and a robe ribbon lies across my knee.

A songbird at my window,

a coolness to my temple—

leaves me in good company.