I hear it most when on the cusp of sleep:
a whisper
unlike a voice
that scurries
from one ear to the next
jittering something small and breathy
before slipping into the
grey-black hum of a room
bent on rest.
Usually I turn
pull the sheets to my nose
and breathe the loving scent
of yesterday’s warmth
(something of lotion and laundry and skin)
which is all the henchman needs
to drag me
by a dreamy foot
into the realm where
scampering whispers
make sense.
But tonight I thought
what the hey
and shot wide searching eyes
to a ceiling I couldn’t see
and said,
You know I can hear you?
I don’t speak whisper
so if you have something to say
say it in English
by gosh.
The light came from somewhere
—I don’t know where—
but it was just enough
to glimmer moons across
eight black eyes descending from the
air above me.
You’re the whisper, I said.
And the spider said, I am.
Aspiring author, poet, literary artist
