One night while we slept
Dreaming of forests
And inhabited attics
And circuses
Impossible spaces
Tilting platforms
Sad, beautiful strangers
A dark meteorite
Weary of travel
Came crashing
Through our roof,
A guided missile
Steered by God's unwavering hand
We slept on
Restless in the heat
And found it the next morning
Set deep in crushed floorboards,
Kitsch flowers and vines
Blackened on the wall
The people came.
It seemed routine to them
A house with a space rock
Lodged in the hallway
They brought equipment
Paperwork.
Finding it could not be lifted
They shook their heads,
Finally bemused, they left
And did not return
It became furniture
And we awkwardly stepped past it
As we went about our days,
Sometimes it whispered
And crackled in the night
Once a faint face formed
Briefly
On its tarry surface
Looking far into the distance.
*
Years later
I wake to find myself
Sleepwalking,
A pale ghost
Haunting our little house
And suddenly afraid
I call you
Hear my thin voice
Die in the night air
Like a spark
Never to be heeded again
I know then that
I stand before the visitor
Suddenly huge, impossibly dark, terrifying
The long and secret process of becoming, finally complete
Its whisper has become certain and clear
"This is the dream",
It says,
"This is the nightmare"