The midnight ticks awake and the refrigerator sighs;
the utilities are aware
The perceived timelessness of the modern lifestyle
sluices money through the powerlines–
the reservoir still produces–
At 3 a.m. you’re still awake, the cat hot on your lap
Antihistamine clears your sinuses, fumbles dry sleep
This morning, you stepped on the cat on the stair
and the dog in the cafe, your assembly of yourself
and the chair not for this permanent world
Domestic pets forgive, resolve, curl up, play dead
Your investigative reports, your bedtime reading,
further your private broiling, ethical hell
Too many atrocities; it’s clear–all the governments are bad
and all the intellectuals Kissingers–
Yeah, it’s a hypnosis, the state-of-the-art invention,
the prime time news compulsions drone
terror between spark and deed
(Your generation’s lowered expectations)
(How will it all pan out?)
In the blue bedroom, yellow city light slats
through venetian blinds onto your wife’s snug back,
jazz tea dream infusion
Tomorrow she’ll coax clouds, drip thought
see shadows on the water and invent
a thousand names for green
She’ll believe in the sandman, page the susurration
of cultivated forest in oblivious waking, live
with what is left, now’s eternity
Kathy Ireland Smith