Sleeping Alone by Derrick Austin

Sleeping Alone

Consider the moths throwing themselves into lampposts,

knocking the threshold of light: consider the fireflies’

green glow, clear as human need: consider the shining

poppies: consider the ghosts of his hands on the mirror:

as each light goes out, consider he, too, will sleep alone:

consider how these arms are empty in bed and know

when darkness presses a poppy’s soft, pink folds,

it’s not absence, for once, just another coupling.