For reasons only Psyche knows, you
haven’t managed to amass six hours
sleep across two nights – you’re not
depressed, possessed, or otherwise
in grip of an obsession: life has merely
turned the light on, kept it on, won’t
turn it off – and though, within its glow, you
know that you’ll be fine – you nonetheless
recline imagining that soon, perhaps
this afternoon, you’ll drift away and fill
the cracks that start just softly now today
to ache a bit with craning in awakeness:
so you close your eyes, and in the silence
of a soft white light, you’re slowly gentled
over by the flight of an enormous wide
and flowing wing – a kite – a paper thing
now daubed and tinted by a supple dyer’s
hand whose fingers – Dürer etching, grand
with wrinkle – ply and sprinkle faded
hues – pinks and yellows, blues – billowing
the paper into rippling shapes: cascading
into grapes and vines and buds which
then become a rush of limbs – ardent bodies
making love – a flood and blush of skin
enfolding into an accordion of silk: lavender
and milk now darkening to blood: flattening
the fabric to black satin of a sheen and
an intensity so deep, you haven’t yet entirely
begun to grasp, for reasons only Psyche
knows, you’ve finally been granted sleep.
