Insomniac prayer at 2 a.m.
by Marge Piercy
Sleep winds around me like a coy
snake, touching, squeezing, feinting
withdrawing. Tedious foreplay
never arriving at the act itself.
Or the absence of act: that place
I can let go of the day and allow
problems to fall like a tray of dishes
breaking, except that in the morning
every problem is seamlessly intact.
I’m a tightrope walker who longs
to let go, to dive into that sweet fog
below. Rise up, fog, and engulf me,
melt me into you. Let me cease
all the brain and body’s muttering,
the discontents of organ and joint.
Let me be Nobody — no body, no
mind nattering, no ambitions,
losses, bills, projects, obligations:
let nothing fill me like a deserted hall
where words no longer resonate.
I want to be emptied out, a purse
dumped on the table. Sleep, you
are the only room I long to enter
that moon of white silence.
Copyright © 2013 by Marge Piercy.
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