by Jay Newman:
Night hums through the gaping
window; a chill sifts between
cracks in the blinds but cannot
permeate the heat vibrations
swimming through
the dark,
so I lay in bed with my eyes dried
open, wipe a glaze from my brow
with the backside of my hand and curse
the pillow itch underneath my head.
Shadow serpents wrestle with bumbling
bats on the ceiling; a woman cries behind
the wall, a whispering song rattles the bed-
post—whines of Jesus and trash cans, clang,
bang, bang,
“Hisssssssss!” roars the rabid raccoon from the notch
in the withered tree outside the balcony. The crick
in my leg reverberates—tuning-fork pains—whistles
to the wind, masturbate.
The angry, red-clock numbers won’t let me
slumber, my brain screeches and somersaults
in my skull. The bag of sand is empty by
the bedside; Morpheus has abandoned me.
About the Author: Jay Newman, winner of Youngstown State University’s 2010 Robert R. Hare award for poetry, is a graduate of YSU with a bachelor’s in English. His poetry has been printed in YSU’s literary magazine The Penguin Review and Worlds Within Worlds Beyond, a Florida-based literary magazine. Jay is currently working toward an MFA in poetry from the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts creative writing program and spends his free time writing dark poetry and prose and composing music.
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