Sleep is a wanton tragedy, a train wreck running from itself.
Every singular cell aching for null. Time curls backwards, fetal,
widdershins. Hours of rest, lost to innumerable sheep, water glasses,
miserable lonely meditation. It is days on less hours than fingers,
solid weeks without REM, a month of pills slipping nightly--
tossing, turning, gnarled in the sheets, tossing, turning,
down the throat with a waterfall—and restless eyes
staring into the dark expecting, waiting, to close. LS

I discovered a majestic peacock
lying comatose in my littered backyard,
with wet fingerish twigs on its neck.
I took it home and colors spilled
onto my hands and poured into
my eyes as I wiped at teardrops.
I placed the peacock on my bed,
talking it in back to life, stroking
its sleeping rainbows, its inert fan
of moist quills.

A few perfect circles were drawn
on the bedsheet as the bird tried
to stir and open its eyes. The night
was black when it died.

Every day I now dream of huge
peacocks pecking at my heart,
the weight of the birds pushing
me into the colorful abyss opening
in my bed; my cries killed by bloody
fingers creeping around my parched throat. LS