What is this that comes, tongue out,

bug-eyed, gripping daintily behind

what could be a tail but is a knife,

come with a bleeding bowl, fingers

curved like long-dead nails? What is this

apparition, stars in the wake of his comet?

The corner of the bedroom housed him,

gigantic in a speck of dust, eyes

soft white pods of spider nests

where the million bodies might

any minute come rushing. These days

I name the horror, frame by frame,

but then there was a pit, me clinging

to it, pushing back at what I could

not see. What is it the poet sees,

now speaking silently, now creeping

from gold curtains, tongue moving

between its teeth, stilled but approaching,

coming, coming; at once huge

and far away, immensely tiny and close?