I understand, Maggie—I, too, expected
Barnabas would break into my bedroom
in the middle of the night. My jugular
was yours in close-up, moist bite marks
throbbing double-time. “That room
the nurse had left open just a crack,”
the doctor says, pointing at the window
where Maggie disappeared, “was wide open.”
Poor Willie, everyone’s sadomasochistic
toy, beaten by Barnabas with his serpent-
head cane and, now, slapped bloody
by Jason who claims, “I’m prepared
to go all the way, my boy.”
[EXCERPT FROM "THE COMPLETE 'DARK SHADOWS' (OF MY CHILDHOOD)"
by Tony Trigilio]