in the dark of early morning
reaching for light that doesn't come
you look to the not glowing
alarm clock...
The darkness
is partially interrupted
by flashes of lightning that
shatter the shadows
throughout
the house, and you wonder
if you are alone
as you get up and make
for the kitchen...
You try another light and it doesn't come
but you have been up too long now
no point in sleep, you know what time it is
and no one else is here anyway, take out
a match and light a candle, leftover from Christmas
because the darkness is almost unbearable;
you cannot make out the colour of your own flesh,
and it helps to know you are here, anyway...
You know know what time it is,
and you are sitting in a room
listening to your whole world thunder
and crash, and to the sound
of him or her not snoring
in the bedroom, and watching
the whiteness of the lightning,
no longer spider-like, throw itself
out toward the black sky
like a fisherman's net, and
resurfacing with nothing...
And maybe, just maybe
one night that lightning
will go out once and come back;
catch those damn stars
and send you one or two to keep...
As long as they aren't the
same ones
that keep you up
counting wishes and stars
when there are no clouds out
and it's not raining.
Again powerless at 3am
