INSOMNIA

Catastrophic dream flash; cardiac jolt;
now wide awake, dog paddling
the long hours, wanting to stop, to
descend, to drown in a liquid glove.
The tremulous treachery of limbs
resisting, dull dim witted resistance,
back stroking, breast stroking, heat
stroking past midnight; the resignation
of dark open eyes. A sigh of options:
the internet, coffee; yes coffee:
ultimate resignation to be a wake to
the death of slumber. Too far from the
consolation of the sea: the cool to
sooth the fireflash and lightning fork
of neurons. Remembering sounds:
a night like this is made for such
rememberance: river waves
in childhood; the surge sound
of trains just beyond the graves
in Melbourne; the bellow of cattle
on that farm outside Sydney;
years of whispered love
to loveless nights. All these
sound chapters echo years,
making the dark a biographic
thing. Nights waiting for birth,
waiting for death. The weight
of waiting dragging eyes to show
their age. Remembering to
a fictive stretch:  some ancestor
staring out at night cold eucalypts,
awake with bogside memories and
chain scars. And I'm wondering
if genes hold memories of
ancestral dislocation.
All fiction, the night is full of fiction
and conjured ghosts, pretending
company as the whole world
snores and salivates on pillows.