Night fell around me
like a wounded animal
in a garden of statues
closing their eyes,
not dreaming,

they are blinded
by the moon
as it cruised by
like a ghost ship,
or a sack of ashes,

the only sound
the quiet humming
of sleeping souls

and a shovel
clearing ground
for digging
the deepest dark hole.

I'm not quite sure
when the dark thought
first came to me;

it crept up softly
and quietly, like a black cat
in the garden of night;

like a light through a crack
in a door opening slowly
and too soon; or perhaps

a drowning man in the deep
waving back at the moon;
too far over his head.