Dark

Once we were young, and knew
the monsters in the dark were real,
waiting there among the shoes
and shirts for another juicy meal.

But we lived and learned, most of us,
that shadow phantoms were the least
of it, that sunlit dailiness
could hold more terrors than the beast.

Now, old, we tardy scholars
serve our demons bread and broth;
we gossip with our midnight callers,
but dread the dusty kisses of the moth.