Ever have insomnia? I mean all night, not just a few hours. Me neither, until last night. I took a dose of Tussin CF for a cough, and the damn stuff kept me awake all night. And it’s so nasty to start with, I can barely gag it down. I recommend you live the rest of your life more happily by avoiding this evil goo. I dozed a little before lunch, but had to cancel my biathalon training.

Here’s something to ponder, found while otherwise minding my own business, on the back cover of this month’s Poetry magazine.

Does it seem cruelly inadequate that, out of all those hours these poets spent in solitude and silence, and given all the life they sacrificed for the sake of their work, only a handful of poems, maybe nothing more than a stanza here and there, persist in the consciousness of a later generation?

At Night

I am more human
at night. I smell soft beings
in the wind, and move
carefully through the house
alone.

Sometimes in halfsleep,
I hear my Mother’s voice
call my name, just that,
and I remember the laughter
of dogs.

There is not so much left of
me as you might imagine
from my size,
but I am a man when the sun
is gone.

Let’s go out in the dew
and the soft snore of the freeway,
and I will conjure you owls.

© 2001 by Kyle Kimberlin