Sleep

by Nikolai von Keller

 
Here the slowest rousings.
Crumpled kimono
still a cast of her waist.
Birds like crumbs
on the pale saucer of dawn.

So immediate
how I live down my nights –
the one thing I keep
for myself. So slight.
Images bloom:

hoarse frost, unclean seas,
peddlers yellow as teeth.
The well beneath me
catches the hours
as they fall.

We stomach winter’s pages
like a guilt.

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