artwork: ralph murre
(Sciophobia)
by
Karl Elder
Ha,
shade! Euphemism for
shadow,
part of the dark
dank
tunnel you’ve traveled
since
your boyhood room where
the
mirror might as well’ve
faced
the wall,
so
awful it was
to
look upon glass
that
seemed, like Dracula’s,
unable
to reflect. There
a
shadow lurked in the shadows
cast
by the streetlight
a
B∙B shot out
every
other night
that
time you felt mean,
man,
real mean−
the
very same shadow
you
lie on now
like
the ghost of somebody else
in
this two-bit rented room
in
the cool of an awning
where
you are bored,
boy,
bored beyond yawning,
having
been tailed,
targeted
from the beginning
victim
of nothing,
your
self the weapon
of
its would-be assassin.
~
previously published in Phobophobia (Prickly
Pear Press)
