Night Beasts

J. M. LILES

Spill cherry-red gloss, lipstick lies

Keep your secrets, I’ll read your mind

I wear a smile with fangs behind

I wear this face, it isn’t mine

Mushroom groans, wake from loam bed, push

Birds call lovers parted by dusk

Cries signify, small death ambush

I hear through ears, between the lines

Call on g-d, pull curses, make signs

Lips keep prayers, shooing black fly, blow

A perfect lily, head sway low

I see through eyes, behind veil-white

Dew-bathed blades in moonlight, we shine

Thrum of insect, earth-slow decay

At last, pillager becomes prey

I felt your heartbeat in the night