For My Love Who Finds No Sleep

There is no hour
on this ragged jewel
when someone
is not sleeping.

Except you.

On, off, on, off
then again on,
the world sombulates.
It is the hum that undergirds
triumphant kingdoms,
frenzied chaos,
installations of kindness
cruel skirmishes.

Yet, dawn is the seep
at your bedroom window
finding you awake.

You seek this muse
who recluses herself from you,
amoral in her absence.

Your long story together
is one of tentative attraction
though the past few months,
more enmity manifest.

Sometimes I think of you
as unrequited lover,
all thumbs, all left feet,
stumbling as you try
to win her affection.

(Your courting of me
more winning
than this fickle paramour
whom you need
so much more.)

I am not jealous.

Were that I Cyrano to your Roxanne.
More the Steve Martin version,
with its Hollywood happy ending,
than the original French,
which is heartrending,
through and through.

I could be vehicle of words
which would marry you,
perfect intonation
of mystical incantation
begetting your bedding beside her
each and every night,
start to finish,
dusk to dawn.


(cc) Karen G. Johnston