INSOMNIA

After the meals

and late-night monologues

and before the

insinuation of dreams,

dark birds

of odd piece

slumber on

power lines

and branches

intersecting with

the dance hall glare

of the autumn moon,

they will wake

and sing

or croak

or merely take

immediate flight

into the rising of a sun

that rises

without apology,

but you lie

awake

in the half state of

knowing where

you are and

where you're going,

the shape of the room

morphs

and reassembles

while the

sound of every awake

and moving thing

in the city after dark

seems to pass by your front door

dragging feet and

cumbersome tools

to and fro

in the hall,

sudden sounds

of music,

a helicopter over the shore line,

unhoused lovers in the

laundry room

playing doctor in the dark,

all you

can think about

is how it seems

to be Pearl Harbor every day

until at last

you slide into

the dramas

writ for a stage

propped between

heaven and what

we understand

to be earth.