Saturday, October 29, 2011

3 a.m. Poem

It’s 3 a.m. My fevered brain
Is still unconscious but vaguely aware
Of a murmur –
Like flies buzzing on dead meat.

Then, like a butcher’s hatchet
Breaks open a skull
My eyes fly open in the dark.

A 3 a.m. dark crawling with tendrils of spider’s webs, coiled snakes, scurrying centipedes.
With a parched tongue, scorched belly, spewing entrails,
A poem, half formed is insisting on being born.

Why can’t it be at 3 p.m.? My half formed half born,
I wish you’d let me stay in my dreamless dream.

-Rita Putatunda

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