The Crawling Shadow
Harris Coverley
Like a black wind
Low and slow
The negative to all positives
Going along the ground
Darkening all it touches
Leaving an eternal stain of malice
A desert of meaning
Neither truth nor lies, but mere emptiness
Beams collected from a dead and distant sun
Rolling on and on and on
In a cephalopodic stumble
Searching for nothing
But perhaps a means to end
What little existence it has
One would pity it if not
For the fact it eats pity
Like a vulture eats a corpse’s eyes
Once it comes
You have to leave
Or else it will take everything
Even strip the desire from your very bones
And have you a wreck
A shadow’s shadow
That no light could ever hope to touch
* * *
Now pour the wine
And close the door
We have time yet before dawn…
