White China Plates I

1         The moon hummed like a refrigerator,         light thru shadows          - the solitude of dusk closing in;         black scars visible across         the moon's face shaped like         mountainous hands, all         silent, the occasional leaf rustling.         2         My fork at plate's edge listening,         listening to the haunting one eye         on the staircase wall white         as the numb light outside palest night.         Caught off-guard, the musty settee         and armchair acting as hallucinogen         to the nostril, the calendar of events         playing ghostly tag with sheer curtains         hovering, shroud-like, on the family Bible         big and brown as the Lord's foot stool.         3         The unravelling tale slowly much as         thick yarn with a kitten         batting it, one event at a time         in sepulchre movement down a         linoleum floor. Two twins burning,         fever scalded in frigid water only         shock setting in, dying to join         the black creek water from which         her unwilling buckets borrowed         this liquid crucifixion and bitter vinegar.         4         Or the drive-house door, silent in precision,         unseen hands before marauding         hoofs in unison dark from windows' edge         to better hear little poke of         sleigh bells or harness rattling grim         with a sick man's cough.         5         This admission of spectral animals         somehow more unsettling than         the young woman next combing her         hair at the foot of the bed scaring         the daylights out of me picturing         the whereabouts of stockinged feet,         these tricksters from another world;         drum and kettle corps gypsy fife         with harbinger doom to rasp of         falling broom -         old and yellow silky straw witch's hair -         and a cat dark         as the Devil's very bread.