Is Tarah

Head Switch

Ten junior boys in low teens,
Slept in a dormitory in spring.
Moonlight seeping through mosquito nets
Patted their pillowed heads
And cradled two neat rows of beds.

Darkness draped the floor,
Submerging flip flops taken off,
Perhaps causing the misstep
That brought a youngster awake…
‘Who… kaun…?!’ he sternly said
As the figure reaching for the net turned and fled.

Chasing after, though by seconds delayed,
He enters the seniors’ room holding breath
And flicks a light switch…
All sleep but there’s an empty bed
Immediately right of the door… ‘What the hell?!’
Thinks the boy with a sleepy head
And retraces steps.

It would be a couple years
Before nature would whisper
The answer… as if a timed switch
Lit up his pubescent head.
He saw clear as moonlight
That some creatures of the night,
Hide flip flopping sides.

– Bolbul