I close my eyes
As a matter of faith,
Or is it just weariness?
Sometimes it is a tunnel
Of love with wet dreams
Lit large with moonlight,
Sometimes it is the dark
Dungeon of sweat dreams.
Then sometimes there is
The echo chamber babbling
Streams of consciousness.
It is inhabited, full of creatures
Of the night, goblins, ghosts,
Bats, and owls who haunt,
Preying on those who
Seek shelter in slumber.
I feel and channel their eyes
Watching, wide open, moving
Rapidly, with each toss or turn.
Night is a shaft with beams
Shoring up the black hole
Descending to where the soul
Is mined. I seek and follow
Veins, digging, drilling, waking,
Hoping to strike some motherlode
So as to assay a precious mettle
There in the dark, deep empty.
The night leaks light at the seams.
It is with wariness I open my eyes,
Dry them, squint—and breathe.
Bruce Morton splits his time between Montana and Arizona. His volume of poems, Simple Arithmetic and Other Artifices, was published in 2015. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in various magazines and anthologies including, most recently, Muddy River Poetry Review, Mason Street Review, Main Street Rag, Nixes Mate Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, Anti-Heroin Chic, Sin Fronteras/Writers Without Borders, and Blue Unicorn. He was formerly Dean of Libraries at Montana State University.