Underworld Dark
Hotly I feel the evening’s demon creeping
at the rear of each resounding step as I walk
up the dark pavement; so silent in its keeping,
like an iron grasp to terrorize my talk.
The shadows that hide in the dark,
in the invisible closure, and shake in the wind
whorling the leaves like a sea between roots—
they’re fire-flames sucking me in.
Sucking me in to the dark, the underworld dark,
of dark inner fingers, hands clutching me, clutching
my sides, grasping out, squeezing the breath at my sides,
drowning me down, down, deep in the waters of nothing.
