I Believe in Night

by Heather Nanni


I believe in the drip that falls from my leaky faucet.
I believe in its reliable splat,
its cool liquid slapping the surface of ceramic.

I believe in the sweet, soft faces of my pets that greet me each morning
wanting only to give love
receive love.
 
I believe in my children who look at me through unclouded
eyes, yearning for me to make all the wrongs of their new lives
right.

I believe in night
and her heavy drape of darkness which swallows my woes,
her invitation to light candles,
their glow softening the sharp edges of monsters
whose hideous features are laid bare
in the daylight.

Oh I believe in night.
Her embrace. Her finality.
Her whisper – “This day has passed.”
Her moonlight and her crickets and her
scavengers happily feeding on the crumbs of broken days
digesting their fragments
until all that is left is bone – dry, white and pure.

I believe that with sunrise those bones will twist and contort themselves
into a dazzling display of fangs
glistening, smiling,
waiting
to pierce the hearts of what in daylight
is pure and gentle as night.


* * * * *

"I Believe in Night" first appeared on Heather Nanni's website, https://quirknjive.com/.

Heather Nanni is a writer and college professor who resides in New England with her husband and two children. She is the author of The Cat In The Wall and Other Dark and Twisted Tales of Women in Strange Situations and her creative and academic works have been published in Her View from Home, LD Access/AECOM Manual for Literacy Practitioners, Haunted Waters Press: Splash and on numerous commercial websites. Heather holds a bachelor's degree in English from Fordham University and a master's degree from the Applied Educational Psychology: Reading Specialist program at Teachers College, Columbia University.