Sleep Torment
In the Voice of a Box Turtle
Clouds curtained night in my Indiana meadow,
where I stopped to sleep beside a wall.
Then knife of eye-fire dropped snaking by me,
its light a blaze so awful
my shield shell seemed to explode.
Death played white tag where I trembled.
Watching, I sighted voice of crack
call its smoke, the sculptured sky in pirouette
by my secret place of air-floating grass.
Its paint, bursting, flavored the taste of my tongue.
Are not, it marked its path north among the stars.
Listening, I lay afraid.
Di Lombard has a drawing published in the Impractical Cats anthology from Medusa's Laugh Press. She has been working at a cognitive behavior lab since 1979. Last year she collaborated in an Oregon State University-sponsored residency in the arts located in the Oregon Coast Range.
