Christian Ward

Once, I saw a goblin
creep out of my drunk flatmate’s
mouth while asleep
to steal our food, pigtail
the communal phone,
volcano the beers,
crater a TV, turn a fox
into a cat, hide several cattle
in a random hallway,
try to catch the full moon
with several shopping trolleys
stacked on top of each other,
flood our sheets with blackberry
blood, crown the microwave
the sun with a blackbird’s nest,
ride through opposite halls
on a coal black stallion…
until someone yanked
the broken wells of his eyes
and everything came flooding out,
including several strange children
who spoke in Celtic tongues
and produced glass eggs
that made us straight like knives
and cough up several farthings.
I am not sure what happened
to the flatmate but we enjoyed
many long summers with the goblin.