Tuesday poem #145 : Alice Burdick : Nosferatu, kindergarten

No monsters climb my dreams now
but the fact of vampires
in a kindergarten movie,
an early lifetime of long fingernails.
The half-circle watches. Half-eyes
watch lights go down. Industrial
rug soaks up scared pee from the kid
who cannot close her eyes.
Abacus, macaroni, tiny scissors,
popsicle sticks, Mighty Mouse, friendly kiss.
The violence of children,
the passivity of children.
The quiet authorities
who do not protect.

Alice Burdick lives in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia and is co-owner of Lexicon Books in Lunenburg. She is the author of many chapbooks and three full-length poetry collections, Simple Master (Pedlar Press, 2002), Flutter (Mansfield Press, 2008), and most recently, Holler (Mansfield Press, 2012), and has been included in several anthologies. Her work has also appeared in many magazines, online and in print, and made the shortlist for the First Lemon Hound Poetry Prize in 2014.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan