No Recollection
Lay waiting for the black bus
of sleep to collect me. It didn’t come,
not that I remember.
I don’t know what signal I'm on,
with my eyes open
to the slatted Venetian blind
in anguish, swallowing another tablet
of melatonin. This wait
is like no other. I am awake,
an array of new tumor before me,
caught helpless in the dim headlight
of my bedroom, holding still
for the sake of the pregnant woman
beside me, who makes me
breakfast on an impossible diet,
quiche with a sausage link
baked into the middle. I am nowhere.
A road regurgitates in the distance.
Tomorrow looms. Whether I am asleep
or blown wide open like a barn
in a tornado ceases to make a bit of difference.
Radio static, and an instant or rain, real
or imagined, I have no idea.