Night Noise
       

The usual soughs and susurrations
of the night, interrupted
by the gnashing of teeth against wood.
The dog, a sighthound, stays curled

in the effortless circle of her sleep.
And my darling wife, a soft dune
beneath our blankets, lies as still
as a windless beach. I let them slumber,

while I rest lightly on the hammock
of their twined breathing, eyes closed,
but vigilant in the theater of sleep,
awaiting the next movement

in nature's nocturne of percussion.
The night-blackened ceiling looms,
like all the ceilings of my childhood,
floor of some improbable heaven.

No nightmares of monsters then.
They inhabited the daylight
and didn't trouble my sleep—
unlike whatever unknown creature

lurks on heaven's creaky floorboards
and gnaws at the beams of our attic.
There are people here, I want to tell it,
and I wander the dark upstairs hall

looking for a stick or pole to rap
the undersides of its feet above,
send it packing with its hunger and its need
and, possibly, some mewling kits in tow.

My sweetheart's body stirs but does not rise,
remains a rise on the relief map of our bed,
as I tap the trapdoor with a foam roller,
pretending I embody true danger.

The dog whimpers from inside her dream.
But the attic is quiet now. The streets
are quiet. And we, too, turn toward quiet,
all breath and sighs and blissful ignorance.

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Copyright © 2020 Yvonne Zipter All rights reserved
from Kissing the Long Face of the Greyhound
Terrapin Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission