The Night of Rosie
Midnight, and the whispers begin
I cannot wake from this transient plane I find so often
So I now follow them closely, instead, and wait
Patiently for the words that will still echo come morning
A child tonight
With a worn cotton rabbit hanging losely in frail arms
Standing a hair's width from my right cheek
She is only present in the peripheral with my eyes sealed shut
Dishwater hair and the eyes of a frightened fawn
She needs her mommy, but mommy is gone
Knobby knees beneath a white hem, she is not sobbing
But she is confused and unaware of her hidden frequency
Between these lines of awake and asleep is a consciousness
Where she and others exist in a limbo state of frozen time
The whispers begin low and static, jumbled and nonsensical
Until you know to listen for strings that join them
I ask through my silence for what is remembered
Never more than bursts of scattered pictures
And she creaks into a chilled calm, a statue
It is midnight, and the visions begin
Rosie, she stands on a wooden deck
A farmhouse white and sundial behind stringy locks
She is alone and waiting, maybe seven
A worn cotton rabbit hanging losely in frail arms
Clay red and cracks beneath bare feet
I am running from the laughter of boys unseen
But close behind, menacing and mischievous
Until an electric bash to the back of my skulls pulls me conscious
But I drop down quickly again to a sharp blue rush
A cluster of air pockets escape above as I sink
Sun fading into a black wet tunnel, cold and muted
I am heavy and loose and drifting to sleep
The girl is gone when my eyes shoot open
And I know she'll not return
She only came to seek an ear
To drown in sunken midnight whispers