A Poem by Di Lombard

Sleep Torment
In the Voice of a Box Turtle

Clouds curtained night in my Indiana meadow,
where I stopped to sleep beside a wall.

Then knife of eye-fire dropped snaking by me,
its light a blaze so awful

my shield shell seemed to explode.
Death played white tag where I trembled.

Watching, I sighted voice of crack
call its smoke, the sculptured sky in pirouette

by my secret place of air-floating grass.
Its paint, bursting, flavored the taste of my tongue.

Are not, it marked its path north among the stars.
Listening, I lay afraid.

Di Lombard has a drawing published in the Impractical Cats anthology from Medusa's Laugh Press.  She has been working at a cognitive behavior lab since 1979.  Last year she collaborated in an Oregon State University-sponsored residency in the arts located in the Oregon Coast Range.