Malcolm Davidson, "Sinistromanual"

In the country, in a room we've had before, on two hard beds shoved together beneath the beams and the sloping roof, we close our eyes. The one of us with ears can hear a scrape, a scratch, a tick, a claw just in the air, a ticking in the beam.

Lights out and sleep, but something gets me up. I lie with one hand holding up my head and listen to the wood.

That's when a hand comes from behind my head and covers my left eye--left hand, left eye--as if to say "don't look," as if to say "guess who."

I spin and there is nothing there. The hand was small and cool and damp and smooth and smelled of soap. A woman's hand, the left hand of a particular woman who was never there.