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Wives of Nightfall, a Poem by Robert Funderburk


We are the

Wives of nightfall

Maidens of the dark

 

Our lips smooth as oil

Feather-soft voices

Speaking words of lust

Robed in garments of

Love

 

Our prey who return

Night upon night

Seem somehow less human

Their bodies shrinking

Their eyes unseeing

Clouded by storms of

Sin

 

Some seek us as targets

For regret, failure, loneliness

And their hands become fists

Maces that free them briefly

From their desperate, empty

Lives

 

Our words are recordings

That mean nothing

We control volume and tone 

 

No one knows us

All is hidden behind

Sequins and pearls

The lace and showcase

Smile

 

Then came a Man who knew me

Though I had never seen him

And in him was no darkness

“Follow me,” softly he said

And I did

 

And came to know him and the

Burning darkness that had

Engulfed me for so long 

Fled from the presence of

His Shining



 

Robert Funderburk was born by coal oil lamplight in a tin-roofed farmhouse outside Liberty, Mississippi. He moved to Baton Rouge, graduated from LSU, served as SSgt USAFR (1965-1971) and now is a retired parole officer spending his time writing and enjoying a country home on fifty acres of wilderness with his wife, Barbara, in Olive Branch, Louisiana. Robert has had seventeen novels published, along with seventy-five poems and short stories in various literary journals.

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