Night

Routine rites. You pace in the hall, so neat
your shadow walking behind you,
your alert wake.
You check and double check every room
and window, and your favourite shutter,
the one you love leaving slightly open,
eyeing a string of stars in its chink.
You see yourself, the king,
blowing out the candles, taking
each in your hand, fitting
each blow in a heartbeat.
Tomorrow. At dawn there will be
the assault, you must win.
You wait for the last candle,
you touch it in its niche and hope
it will prepare the right dream
with the tassel you miss.
Your queen sleeps in her chamber,
in her slight breath-trickle
the running draughts pass, appeased.
In bed you wait for sleep,
you invoke its jewelled sea,
its magnified fish scales, you need
to be swallowed in the sea’s manes.
Hours tick. Not many, and you wake up
in the middle of it, startled
by your own unknown, the dark
pounding like hanging mud
and a scorching tiger’s stare in your marrow,
yourself, what doesn’t leave you.

And it’s dawn. You wake up with the well-known
all right, a whisper, a popping bud
once more giving the all-clear.
While the thin necklace of your queen’s
breath in her sleep hangs
with the first light’s lips.
Your fear is intact, a solid cloud.
But you are glad and ready too,
you listen to the sweepers shuffling on the stones,
their brooms wide like the surf,
and the whining and banging iron
of the opening doors,
and, sudden and close,
a lonesome twitter like a sword.
You know it will dig out the sun on time.
So you get up and smile
with the glad fear that maybe is courage.

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