IÂ’m so tired
sleep doesnÂ’t talk
to me anymore

and my thoughts are falling
into four hour chasms

where eyes
are tightly sewn and perils
of nightfall

wrap their lips
around a shrinking moment

of life, crying:
rise up, stagger
to the vigil

to the family self
I give to Dad: his eyes

roll back and forth, washed
in pain-kill dreams
that utter

moment by choking
moment, curious words

mixed with phantoms
through an intravenous drip
and smiling nurses

each a caring face and word
to harrow

our shifting news
their eyes
enforce a gentle rhythm

on the bedsore drama rinsed
in stages

from the room, defiant
wind howls call
the death of names

call omens
beeping from a breath machine

call plastic tubes
that stutter
juices through the flesh

of bedrock, forcing drughouse skins
of air

to reach a pulse
contentious gasping
of his monitored breath

every grimace
of the suctioned lung

thereÂ’s a dark Somali woman
she flows like color in the hallway
glistening in her shawl walk

orange and violet ripples
on her breath, from other worlds

a smile, her children
play on dreamy phrases
of a music tongue

I see her when I leave the heart ward
for a smoke

in a hospital corridor, the specter
of life, slender
hope in beautiful dress

laughing with a lovely child, and with her
a white-eyed man

has third world teeth and shines
a grin of kinship
for my missing dreamland

12/01/2005

Posted on 12/01/2005
Copyright © 2026 Jim Benz