One Liter of Sleep

Let me buy you one liter of sleep

It's fascinating, how it funnels down

to mix like gas with water

always eager to disappear

in a solvent, as if in fear of being found

It may not come cheap,

and it lasts only for a few hours

but it keeps the blood viscous

enough to know when to stop

and when to come rushing

You say your dreams are leaking

through your ears,

I don't know how to stop it

I can just see it pool on our silk

pillows cases, and in the morning

I just turn them over and pretend

nothing happened

I have closed my eyes more often

to find myself excruciatingly awake

as if I'm burning from within.

The laundry woman sends her regards.

5:03 AM

03/21/11

Moonshine

Tonight the moon shines the brightest

and all the water in me is rushing

restlessly from shore to sea

erasing, revealing, taunting then shying away

destroying corals into beds of sand

Where I can lie on my back

to have my place in the sky.

We trace stars for two reasons

to remind us who we were

and to chart journeys on these celestial maps

but there is a certain longing

to come home,

or just the feeling of being home

to a memory perhaps

after a long time of voyaging relentlessly

to a sea that knows no music

It rages against a moon

unashamed by its terrestrial flaws

and I am drawn in comfort

washed under this lunar apparition

as all the salt water emptied itself out

to finally bring me to sleep.

2:56 AM.

3/20/11