Bogeyman

Just two days ago we started feeding the birds again. Anytime before winter hibernation the mixture attracts bears. 

This morning the feeder sits empty on the ground, knocked down by a sizable critter. But what? The incident not dissimilar to an episode I experienced this past autumn.

Bogeyman

The fugue of sleep muffled

the mumbles and grumbles 

leeching through condo walls

before I blinked and had to rethink

the source of the sounds

since cabin shadows surrounded me.

My partner producing odd snores?

An animal beneath the floor? Or

something out for a midnight walk

a wall away - a Yeti, an axe murderer?

Come daytime my mate humored me.

Checked beneath the deck, nothing

but wind blown leaves, the crawlspace

still snug.

No lairs, no bears, no nightmares

discounting, of course, two circling

vultures. Their wrinkled, alien heads

liver-colored and protruding

from vampire capes of dark feathers

cursed me with shivers on an otherwise

mild morning.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor