The sleep of the just

Like desert rain
sleep falls hard on the exhausted

drawing down oblivion as a weighty curtain
soaking the finally-sleeping in heavy, ponderous rest

three days and nights of very-little-sleep, not-enough-rest
blame heat and dogs and mosquitos and teething children and acrobatic unborns and oh, the moon, why not
perhaps just not the right time for sleep, perhaps that's all
and other things just arise in justification

but then after the famine, the feast
you feel it stealing up, the surety, from where it's impossible to say, that this will be the night, there'll be no waking tonight
and suddenly the hunger, so intense it is in every bone, for rest

and then to bed. and then the sleep
sodden hours of it
purple with dreams that you can't remember on waking, but still tease the back of your brain
waking feeling almost like you've been drugged
not so much refreshed or energetic, as hydrated
like an essential liquid has been restored

sleep fixes so many things. the world, it feels better.

- Kathy, 2/03/2005