THE
SLAYER
for anna
-
Geoffrey Philp (Jamaica)
On nights when my daughter
awakens
from her nightmare about
the monster
in our backyard, I comfort
her by saying,
“It’s only a dream,
darling.” “But I can hear
him, Dad, growling at our
back door,
scratching windows in the
kitchen,
and I’m afraid one day he
will kill you
and take mom.” Sometimes,
before I limp
back to my room, listening
to the rise
and fall of her breaths, I
laugh as I tuck her
under the covers. But most
of the time, I lie
to keep her childhood
memory of safety alive,
so that on a morning when
I’m no longer
home, and she wanders into
the backyard,
searching for herself, and
stares into bloodshot
eyes, her breath won’t be
as shallow, nor her hands
as shaky, and pray that
she will forgive me.
****