~13 ~

I dreamt of Midnight turning to the thirteenth hour.
I dreamt of thirteen candles and thirteen, black flowers.
I walked past thirteen windows and entered the thirteenth hall,
Where a calendar, marked thirteen, suspended the wall.

Thirteen black cats perched on thirteen, high, wooden rafters.
They taunted prowling wolves with their slow, purring laughter.
Thirteen footsteps, I took, to consider this story.
The view was surreal with all its fictional glory.
But on this thirteenth slumber of the thirteenth, same dream,
Some sanely truth was offered from the madness that seem.

I heard a clock chime with thirteen, long, lingering bells
And I envied this theme with its corridors of spells.
Onward, I awoke to the reality of dawn
And the peculiar kingdom of illusion was gone.
I reckoned with each to decide the strangest of place
And found that the factual and dream parallel pace.

(c) Kay Irvin