Whispering West by Richard Manley Heiman

Your bed shakes softly

just before the morning.

You clutch the barren sheets,

frozen and thin.

Nightjars brush past the panes

with mottled wings,

while kisses like wet towels

slide down your skin.

A distant dog cries

every moonless night,

jerking you bolt awake

from tortured dreams.

No one knows where

that dog hides in the daylight

or why his howls sound

like a lover’s screams.

You listen close

for echos in the canyon

at dusk, when pale light

lingers in the trees.

Those cypresses the wrens

have all abandoned—

there where we’d make

our careful plans, and dream.

And then, a shimmering

makes you turn and stare,

but it’s just pale moon glow

on my chair.