Night Marriage: Dreams from Childhood

A union of disturbing childhood dreams

She was enormous.

An ogre of a woman.

Not hideous

but able to engulf my 4-year-old

body with one hand ,

like an old black and white movie

I saw once.

She had fair skin and primitive clothing,

maybe the skins of some beast.

She hefted me up giving me a

 better view of her bare, barrel-sized breasts.

One was unremarkable.

On the other, where there should have been an

areola, there was a combination lock;

the kind safe crackers put

tickling fingers on clicking-cryptic secrets.

Did she say something?

It was a room.

All black eye lids,

all glistening glass.

I say room but I cannot recall corners

ceiling or walls.

A slender-sharp shard

pierced the pristine floor pushing

forward without effort

a shark's fin through a placid black sea.

I ran.

The shard followed.

I don't remember hitting a wall,

but I had to turn to keep moving.

a stairway! mocking and pitiless

 turns me

 away.

Slithering-slow-silent-set in stone the shard

 gained on me and…

 Did I fall?

I'm holding something long thin

or is it holding me

I'm over the chasm

again.  I've been here before.

I hang like a wet rag on a stick

Without looking I know

it is dark beneath me.

Grip lost,

falling, 

screaming.   

I am lost

screaming in the dark.