Insomnia
by Constance Vogel Adamkiewicz
Eyes squeezed
shut, you watch a mangled newsreel of your life.
The floor
rumbles. Something has unearthed the
earth,
a great
exhalation as if the whole world has breathed out.
The dog pricks
up her ears, paces the bare floors,
her nails a
metronome - click-click, click-click,
from twelve to
two o’clock, when the bear
of darkness
crawls from its cave.
Drowsy, you
plod to the porch,
where the dog
has led you.
She stands, a
statue peering out.
In the
stillness you expect something
to blast
across the lawn - a coyote
with a bloody
rabbit in its jaws, a burglar
with your
jewelry in his burlap bag, or worse.
Wide awake
till dawn you rock in the wicker chair
watching the
black holes between the hostas and ferns.
You can deal
with a coyote or burglar, but not with your life.
~ first
published in Willow
