Death crawls behind my eyes
like darkness seeping from the end
of the tunnel that drains the light
of day away at dusk and blackens
it for night, pulling down the sun
and sucking its stellar siblings into airless
voids that snuff out their lambent fires;
but then my dilating pupils draw in
the rising moon that makes death’s
frail bones glow white, its bleached teeth
grinning from cheekbone to cheekbone
as it resurrects itself, tilts back its skull,
and rattles its feet into the dance.
Copyright 2017
T. Allen Culpepper
Poetry When It Comes 