Night Walk

This poem was published in Dreams & Nightmares a year ago this month, and I’d like to share it with you now.

Night Walk

One night I walked outside
to look at the full moon,
but there was no moon,
only clouds and wind
that whispered Go, Go 
into my ears. So I went.
Without phone or flashlight,
sweater or shoes, I followed
my toes up mossy hills,
down dusty ravines,
through fields of flowering flytraps.
I crossed the path of a black cat
and it ran up a tree in a panic.
I traipsed and trudged
over boulders and sand
until I found myself
at my own front door
which stood ajar, paint peeling,
windows smudged and dim.
I looked down,
saw my toenails had grown long,
my hair gray. My skin
wore the lines of my travels,
etched into once smooth terrain.
And I lifted my aged head
and howled at the moonless night.

© Carie Juettner, 2017
Published in Dreams & Nightmares, Issue 106, May 2017