Echoes

Here we are again, my love,
Adrift in patient, whispered kiss;
Floating clear to Heav'n above,
Climbing e'er toward our bliss.

Lying there in afterglow,
Relaxation turns to sleep;
Where beneath --no, where below--
Conjurations lurk and creep.

Much of what we see in dreaming
Sorts the mind, leaves it unstressed--
But why then do we oft wake, screaming,
Thus negating any rest?

Mayhap these hallucinations
Are echoes of our deepest fears,
Given form, by machinations
Of our memory's billion gears?

Or perhaps, the inner dark
That we don't want to see?
You could be a hungry shark,
Set toward devouring me.

- © Jackson Cambridge, 2015.