a canvas of shadows

There’s a shadow on the wall that doesn’t belong—
I’ve stared into this canvas for far too long,


half a life spent watching it breathe with the dark, shadows and light moving like a quiet song.


And I know that around this hour, the streetlight should shine
 it’s yellow glow across the lawn,
 past the bare, brittle arms

of the leafless tree that sways in the light breeze,
 past my sheer curtains, filtering this picture that I see.

I used to see hands in that dance—
reaching, rising, stretching skyward,
 as if from a grave or from a cage;

urgently, desperately, trying to escape from whence it came.


Or perhaps just reaching for me. 
An embrace imagined in flickering light, here and there, at this dead of night.

But now, there are no hands.
 Now, a man stands

Solid. Still. Stoic.


Etched in silhouette on my ceiling.
Stocky. Still. Waiting.

Watching me watching him.

Or maybe not. 
Maybe it’s just me alone,
perhaps I’m fantasizing.

Imagining like I usually do.

To think of anything to get me out of my room…

around this

time

of night.