" Night pulses "
Somewhere a baby cries - a new
mother, breasts leaking, shuffles
sleepily to her first a.m. feeding.
Somewhere a man lies in a room
with sick-green walls; crying
for morphine two minutes overdue.
An insomniac rises from a rumpled
bed; peers up at a peevish moon -
finds his own wild face instead.
Somewhere an old man tosses
upon an edemic tide; his last serous
breath unheard by his sleeping wife.
The night peaks with raucous cries
as lovers rouse on twisted sheets;
reach again for swollen flesh,
mindlessly seek a transitory death.
The lonely sleep, hands between legs,
subtle rhythms betray their dreams.
Under the canopy of night, joists
creak, a toilet runs, a tap drips
a hollow song, a gust shudders
venetian blinds, a curtained ghost
takes flight. Out there - scattered
sounds - muffled groans, sighs, cries,
of those sleeping, those dreaming,
those dying, those newly born --
the dead are mercifully silent.
And somewhere,
through a windowpane, a cat
stretches long, yawns wide
with benign indifference.
© 2002 Janis (Carole MacRury)
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