May 13, 2015
History of sleep
(a myth of consequences)
The ivy across our back fence tangles gray into a green evening light.
How a second emptiness un-punctuates the first.
Disloyal, we attempt to construct.
An ache will tighten but not form.
Making impossible even this upsurge of crows across our sightline.
The Mayans invented zero so as not to ignore even the gods who wouldn’t carry their burdens.
Too slippery as prayer, too effortless as longing.
Our problem was preparation. Premeditation neutered any rage potential.
Years later, the spine of our backyard appears to have always been crooked.
White jasmine, dove-calm in the lattice, is not a finely crafted lure.
***Rusty Morrison, “History of sleep,” Beyond the Chainlink, Ahsahta Press, 2014.
