I woke up with the word insouciance
stuck in my head and a fly
buzzing around the room in a way

that made me want to kill.
Was it the green tea
at dinner that left my mind lit

like a morning bell ringing
in a glaring vigilance?
An ebony fly in a dark room,

and only the glowing embers
of the clock radio for guidance
through that strict attention.

Downstairs, in the book,
near the word that woke me –
insomnia. Which I did not need

to look up. In the kitchen
I take an apple and cut it
into quarters, like my heart.

For all I know the fly
marauds the empty room still.
But here, I hunt down

sleeplessness with pen and paper,
noting its tracks. Twenty years
from now who will look on these

works and despair? The label
swears a third as much
caffeine as coffee. Then what

drives on these hollow thoughts
like shrimp casings drifting
in viscous air, invisible,

but rustling? My prey slips
into the understory, and I lie down
in the matted grass it leaves behind.

November 3, 2007

Categories: Poems
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