Wild Things
Little Max kept one furry headed Wild Thing
under his bed, its hide still wet
and stinking from the trip across oceanic imagination.
The tiny monster burrowed into a coarse green Army blanket
Max had been given by his father.
The two never played during the day,
but in darkness Max would lock his door,
take the Thing out,
and lose himself
in the reflection of its amber eyes.
One night, when his parents had gone to sleep,
he scrambled under the bed, pulled out the Thing and held it
fiercely, drinking the pulses of breath,
burying his face in its hair. Its body was smooth
and pleasant, but when he raised it to his lips
and tilted his head back, through his glasses
he could see the bedroom ceiling,
which had become a cold and starless sky.
More Things stepped down from the ceiling shadows,
growing Things, shrinking Things,
(hawk-faced clawing knee-hugging things),
they stalked the room and carried him like a king
to where his drum loud pulse wouldn't wake anybody,
where his slap happy dance wouldn't wake anybody,
where his purple faced howl wouldn't wake anybody.
In the morning, they found his puffy voice older.
They smelled the dark when he shook himself awake
at breakfast, but they peeked under the table
and behind the stove for the source.
Nothing hid there.
Things napped in his stomach, and rooted
where they could root, and seeped
where they could seep. Max tripped out the door,
his sweet afterglow mixed with Mom's eggs,
the song under his bed jangled in his ears.
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I swear this was written before the previews for the movie "Where the Wild Things Are" came out. I like the power of repetition - why is it exactly the repetition seems to give power to a phrase?
