Patricia M. Twining-Obarski
Works

Be Still

Be still

Don’t move a muscle

Don’t flinch

Just wait

Knotty pine wall panels

Fanged beasts lurk

Look through frosted glass

The moon pokes through the elms

Headlights of passing cars

Slide across heavy drapes like

Searchlights seeking a plane

Lost in the night

Nursery Rhyme imprinted wallpaper

Lost sheep,

A dish, a spoon,

A cow over the moon

A fiddler cat

In a feathered cap and boots


But you can’t

Look away

You can’t help but

Look

Eyes can’t be trusted

A serpent’s shadow

Slithers on the ceiling

A scarab beetle

Crawls up the wall

The tail of a scorpion

Rattles on the floor


It is hard to tell

What is real in the dark.