Neanderthal
by Ron Salisbury
After four, downward roll of us toward morning, coldest part of night just before the great fires stoke our souls, I finally sleep. That sleep that drools so deep below worry that most sounds won’t wake as they would earlier when I twist on that pallet of nails, potato field mattress. Why? Some snip, vestige ghost still left of DNA stands watch. Teeth and claw beyond the fire’s edge. Again the westward rim ate that flaming egg, spewed its peach and red insides along that ragged line. What am I to do if there is never light again. How will we eat? Or see? What’s a man to do, the car needs tires, mortgage, taxes, everything is due. Then the warming east, the wash, shimmer, the lightening load. The plant of sleep come sprout again, that drool, as worry, claw and tooth, the egg, that egg at dawn lets hold of him.