The Question In Your Sleep

On your walk home
after dark last night
you were daydreaming
about the future
when you were
confronted:

she stepped out
from behind a pillar
on the outside edge of
a decaying parking garage
and looked into you.

She appeared, this time, 
as a little girl dressed
in distressed clothes
from a fantasy frontier era.
You saw the gingham,
the dirt, the torn hem. 
You thought something
was off but you couldn’t 
put a finger on it
until you saw the pillar 
was a tooth and the garage
was a mouth and you 
had to run from being swallowed
by whatever
had coughed her up.

At home, you sat
and slowly ate
cold canned soup
while catching up
on the news and did
a spit take
when she showed up
in the background of
a story about 
something unrelated
to her — a crisis tale
wedged between
atrocities.

She cradled a puppy
in her arms, a puppy with
huge teeth, a lolling tongue. 
A mouth you recognized at once.

This morning, waking up
from a question that lasted
all through your sleep:
asking yourself
how long has this been going on — 
torn clothes, betrayal,
innocent fantasy masking darkness
and the devouring behind it.
The beloved dog that becomes 
the vulpine Other. The pleading eyes 
fixed upon your own.