Joel Ferdon
They started the night he pulled
the last bead and feather
from the dreamcatcher,
a haze of ornate yellow
tucking its way between
the blind slats. And just like
that, he asks for the cloud
light to be on at night.
I know I trapped them in
with him— nightmares of
the father— but I can’t say
for certain it’s the sun
setting outside his window
or a pair of their stalactite
eyes looking to see
if the coast is clear. Light on,
light off. More prayer
than repetition
as he chants from inside
the locked door. After weeks
of sleepless nights, we
unplug the bright cloud hanging
from above his bed that drives
the dark from the well-lit places.
Something in my room. But of course
it can’t be. When he pulls the night
light from the wall and can’t
figure the outlet from
the uneven patches, we hear him
slam into the door and scream.
When we struggle through
the rest of the house’s
dark, we see his fingers
stretched from underneath the door–
red specks and a patch of bleached blue
fur leading in, or,
God forbid,
trailing out.
***
Joel Ferdon’s chapbook, Elegy for My Father’s Bones, was published by Louisiana Literature Press in 2016, and his poems have appeared, or will soon, in Verse Daily, Asheville Poetry Review, Flyway, The Southern Quarterly, Cold Mountain Review, storySouth, Louisiana Literature, Star*Line and elsewhere. Joel is the recipient of an Artist Support Grant through the North Carolina Arts Council and the Arts and Science Council of Charlotte/Cabarrus Arts Council, has been a contributor at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He serves as the Director of Library Services at Stanly Community College in Albemarle, North Carolina, and lives with his wife, son, and three black labs in Charlotte, North Carolina.