Poem #110 of 365

"Listen to me, it wasn't
a possum, it was a raccoon."
Your eyes, in the dark night,
grew wide as you said "big,
it was real big."

Your fear haunts me, and I
imagine the things you do,
I do, others do, when fear
overcomes and floods
our veins, mixing with the
cheap beers and general
everyday blood of living.

I'm not bothered by raccoons,
even if they're free-ranging
on my street. They're like
the dark shadows of thought
that visit my mind, and I've
found those darknessess to
be tameable, and I let them
lurk as they like. Long as
they know who's boss.

But you, and others, I'm not
so sure how y'all stand on
shadows, cuz sometimes you
even seem afraid of your own.
So I wish a prayer or pray
a wish that you may see only
what you can handle, grip the
moment ably when it grabs
your throat.

I forget about everything,
your saucer eyes, the build-
up of worry in your face,
the musculature of fight-
or-flight, and it's the
next day or the day after
that, and I'm calmly
driving in my hood, and
I steer past a flattened
carcass, but it's not so
flat yet, so it must be
fresh kill.

And it's a raccoon, and
possibly your raccoon,
the "big" one of your
fret, but this thing
is not moving. It has
become an emblem on
the ground, like the
patches on the Boy
Scouts shirt you used
to wear. A sign of
something finished,
mission accomplished,
challenge faced. I
want that emblem, furry
and inert, dead and cold,
to be your fear done
gone. Your anxious
worry crushed to nothing
on Rosedale Street.

I wish other fears could
be so easily removed....

copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez