The world's gone to sleep, but not me;
I'm left uneasy by an owlish urge
to keep watch when watching's silly.
Sounds grow menacing to the unpillowed ear,
while the muffled one augments
a steady rhythm of breath and blood.
In breathing slow I hope to mime
the sleeper's easy speech of sighs and whispers;
in sharp jumps and half starts I fall
into dreams that disconnect without warning.
I'm adrift in the Horse Latitudes,
bobbing and rolling with the slow motion
of swells far out to sea; as if
in trying to sleep I become a plaything
to be turned turtle by nightbreakers:
no direction into sleep, no momentum.
Give me the strength to swim from this shallow chop
into the Gulf Stream's forceful seawish;
the strongest undertow seeks a single direction:
my yawn continued by the current's pull.
October 1998