Insomnia, Part II

by Alan Elyshevitz

I am solvent, well – ventilated.  No one
has spurned me.
The trees in my window efface
the wind.
Yet my murmurings catch
on furniture
in the dark.
This brutal companionship
of words
is a talkative salesman
when one’s bladder
is full.

And ramify is a word
more expensive
than others,
colluding with backlit
memory:
my father
a typographical
error
in a hospice
bed,

my mother
as bent as an editor’s
comma.
Think of quantities
instead.
In need of dispersal
I calculate
my age as an animal
does:
in muscle loss, in tooth
decay.

To speculate the end
of self
is to grow
small,
to pulverize
memory
and sift it for
a long – forgotten
infant
sleep.