Sonnets From Other Lives: Jack

Jack thinks that he might be a lycanthrope.
He suspects the dreams are more than dreams.
He isn’t ready yet to bind himself in rope
& lock the doors. It’s just sometimes it seems
like rage is waiting somewhere in the wings
to rise up from within as from the gorge
& in the morning he’ll remember things
that leave his poor soul shattered to the core.
The papers remain silent & the news
reports no midnight rampage he can find.
So he’ll reassure himself it isn’t true
& that—at worst—he’s just losing his mind.
Tonight he’ll watch some T.V. in his room
then fall asleep beneath the swollen moon.