Jenne’ Andrews: A Theory of Insomnia

.

Perhaps I am not sleeping

Because I am meant

To become a poem.

.

Perhaps the stanzas of my hands,

how they have become dry and pale,

branching in a thicket of thin bones,

write themselves into time

like quicksilver

with their elemental serifs–,

those dark travelers hungry

for comprehension

toiling uphill in lunar sand.

.

My body lags

with the gravity of exhaustion.

Yet the mind

incandescent with wakefulness

petitions the lark

to leave her solitude.

.

How this brain

wants to shut against light

like an oyster

around an immanent pearl.

.

And how heavy my wrists

although I carry nothing.

.

ii

.

The lines in a book of sonnets

left in the window for the rain

wash away.

I leave the bed

where I was,

a stain of shadows.

.

Day languishes toward twilight;

I am a small, foraging

bird in chaff, whittled down

to a minute chip

of obisidian,

.

mote floating in the fog of reverie,

where the filaments of phrase

shine through, unfurling.

.

Read me now.

I am distilled

to the pale layer of sweat

lining the pewter thimble

on an old woman’s

trembling hand.

—

Copyright 2015 Jenne Andrews