Boy Needing a Dream of a Tomato

Pale menace across the bedroom walls-
a shot beam of the intruder’s flashlight
upon the childhood face of paste.

Creaking cabinets in the cracked night-
one a.m. fears of future white cleavers
hidden in the bitten winds of winter.

Intractable layers of haggard shadows-
a frosted clamp edge and heavy iron traps
to snap from the rack of collapsed shelves.

Hours away from any sleep tonight,
covers he then casts over his head
thinking the scrape dark is for a pall.

Will he drown in his own moist breath?
The day that happens his ghost will yell,
“When the muricate grabs, grab back!”

Holding on through the fathomed depth
waits that other warm sun of summer,
pillowed lava and submarine volcanoes.