The Doorway From One Dark Room Into Another Dark Room

Who pushed the moon out on stage?
Who replaced my pillowcase with butcher paper?
The dust clumps rest quiet as coiled snakes.

I sit upright in my bed.
You can learn a lot by waiting in the dark;
about the antiquity of the dark, the agelessness of it.

Then I hear a sound like the shuffling of feathers.
A man walks by the door in a buzzard costume, head to toe,
dropping a few of the heavy black ones off his tail.

I’ll have to use the broom.

He doesn’t think I can see the blood underneath his fingernails, but I can.