CRACK IN THE NIGHT

you would think
maybe day but no

nightmares emanate
unsaddled unbridled

thunder across the plain
of pain

leftover from the light
dear life

I hang on
demons drag down my boots

handful of mane
sweaty like my brow

fingers twisted
through it

I wake
the sun a headache in the sky

Robert L. Dean, Jr. is the author of The Night Window: Ekphrastic poems and short fictions to the photos of Jason Baldinger (Kung Fu Treachery Press, 2025); Pulp (Finishing Line Press, 2022); The Aerialist Will not be Performing: ekphrastic poems and short fictions to the art of Steven Schroeder (Turning Plow Press, 2020); and At the Lake with Heisenberg (Spartan Press, 2018). A multiple Pushcart, Best of the Net, and Best Spiritual Writing nominee, his work has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Sheila-Na-Gig online, I-70 Review, and many other literary journals. Dean lives in Augusta, Kansas.