two of me

by Bob Meagher

 

very, very late at night,

after they’ve turned out

the television and the small

yellow kitchen light-bulb,

and the beds creak and the

house creaks and the mice creep,

when it’s very late so the

clouds look blue in the full moon,

and the shadows of the

telephone poles fall

against the only

unslept-in bed in the house,

very so late at night

i get restless.

 

i am two kinds of people,

a little-boy person with

a nose poked around the corner

watching the black tom-cats

creeping past the past-midnight

trashcan shadows, when i

run from dark to dark and

pretend that i am the only person

at all, and the masked avenger, then–

 

suddenly i am very older,

and a frightened runner

in the pale grey moonlight,

then i put my hands

in my pockets and

shuffle down my own

deserted streets and

don’t care who or what

or why i am but

still get to wondering

what the hell it is

keeps me out in a

little-boy world

so very late at night.

 

the little boy does not get scared.

it is the other me

who will lie under the

moonlight,

waiting for morning and

dead stars to fall.

 

Bob Meagher lives in Greenfield, New Hampshire with his wife and two parakeets. He programs computers for a living, but really loves music and the spoken (and printed) word.