Whispering night
Your arousal is apparent
Dripping breaths upon
Children's dreams
And fearful crones

Your coming to is deceitful
On heels of sunset's demise
A leg's length, slowly falling
Against a navel background
Sparkling drowning diamonds

Listen now, to its rictus grin
Great full lips, stained dark red
Wrapped around dinners, snacks
Long fingers pick, pluck and snap
Feral jaws work, bone and sinew

Hair tussled but not undone
Not out of place, habitually hungry
Disguising true shape, lies to men
Ravenous eye shine through
Sparkling lights out of place

Not strange to be prey
To this creature, daughter of night
We've grown accustomed, lost
Finding safety in artificial light
Ever she is, on its edge

Patient and less leery,
It's not fires, our path to light
It doesn't burn, indeed it seems
She has seen, watching Children
Touch bedside lights, just off

From between floors, walls
She hides, touching, running
Long nails along the wood
Or cheeks, daring us to hide
In to the shadows, she flies

Never retreats, she is simple
Predator, there just for a bite
Distracted by another,
Potential supper, either
Staff or divide, devours

Stealing breath, stealing lovers
The cold, warm body of night
Slithers under covers, darkness
Rides bringing uncomfortable
Mornings, marks and lies

We tell ourselves bogeymen
Maybe a lover, think it was them
Long nails down backs or thighs
Asleep and dreaming, don't think
It's not possible another, last night

Her embrace took both, too many
Thinking one was another
Maybe rough, a carnival of thighs
Flesh, firm, budding and lithe
Drawing even blood in need

This is night, a creature
Between the physical states
Almost one, or another
Like between our bodies
Wrapped, each in sleep

And then, as eyelids close
That little sound, stirs
Tell yourself, no
It's nothing, just...
Anything else