Intent
after No Place to Hide, intaglio, 1977, by Cheryl Burgess
Something was eating the bed,
its lurid teeth glowing like pointy flames.
Everyone else had wrapped themselves
tight in the checkered sheets,
and all he could do was put a pillow
over each ear and hope
it would go away. Eyes fell
like round droplets of poisonous resin
from the night where hands tore
gaping slits to let red light pour down,
infecting whatever it could.
Then the disease began to give him
detailed instructions.
