Mother

All my nerves are suddenly transfixed

A terror-stricken child, I shriek

Loudly, clamorously

The shriek, half way through

Freezes on my tongue

My jaw’s locked stiff

My tongue doubles itself up

Falls backward into my gullet

Trembling I rise on one elbow

And fall heavily down on my back

The creases of the bedspread slink and slither

Serpents curl around my ankles

From my vacuous veins

Geysers of blood gush forth

Fall cascading around me

On the white bedspread …

…A wee little baby, I

Finally open my eyes

Shut them again

The midnight finds me forsaken, forlorn

I cry out again

I cry out loudly for my mom

Help! Help! I shriek

Help me, Mom!

The monsters of the night

Are swallowing me up alive!

A wee little baby

Holding the wee little finger

Of my mom and the clock’s ticking tongue

I finally emerge

Back into the world I know

The world of sight and sound.

This, I say, is m

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y room

This, I say, is my house

No longer a wee little babe, I say

A grown up man – a grandfather now I am

I reassure myself.

What, indeed, was the nightmare

That had vaulted over years

To lay siege to my mind?

A bewildered babe again

A seven years old

Whose fever ravaged mind had felt the same terror

Decades ago

The same monster-snakes

The same billowing blood

That soaked up the bedspread

And in trying to call my mom

I had gotten up

And fallen on the floor in a heap.

These slithering snakes

This flood of blood

Woken up half a century later?

Why, I ask myself.

It was my mom, I know

The valiant lady, I bow

To her

You came and kissed my forehead

Caressed me with love

And shooed away the demons

But tonight?

What can I do tonight, O my mom?

Isn’t it right

That you're now in your grave

And I, a fifty years’ old child

Still need your caressing hand in my sleep!