By Steve Knepper
The needle dance on neck, the spider scurry
of being watched—I turn from Goodnight Moon
and there he stands against the back porch glass,
so tall the door frame cuts across his ears,
claws drooping to his knees, absurdly long
but for the dainty dewclaws on thin wrists.
The fuchsia twilight auras his dark fur.
A sparse cream moon distends over his gut.
His small red eyes are not malign. They are
intrigued, and this is worse. The baby on
my lap guffaws. After the whispered hush,
my gaze lifts back to portal glass. He’s gone—
pink sky and flower pots. “Goodnight nobody.”
of being watched—I turn from Goodnight Moon
and there he stands against the back porch glass,
so tall the door frame cuts across his ears,
claws drooping to his knees, absurdly long
but for the dainty dewclaws on thin wrists.
The fuchsia twilight auras his dark fur.
A sparse cream moon distends over his gut.
His small red eyes are not malign. They are
intrigued, and this is worse. The baby on
my lap guffaws. After the whispered hush,
my gaze lifts back to portal glass. He’s gone—
pink sky and flower pots. “Goodnight nobody.”
Steve Knepper teaches at Virginia Military Institute and is the founding editor of New Verse Review: A Journal of Lyric and Narrative Poetry. His poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in THINK, 32 Poems, Blue Unicorn, Pulsebeat, The Brazen Head, Alabama Literary Review, Amethyst Review, and Grim and Gilded.
