If you close the book and go to sleep the sentences will fall to pieces
the plots will come unresolved
If you live in New York a little screen in your apartment sees midnight
rain on the sidewalk, people eating noodles from a box
If you leave your teapot and stuffed grey whale out in the yard
then the planets become toys, your house as well
Those are delicate hours, like you were a delicate child at first
living on a dropper of milk, a thimble of breath
Your tubes and wiring were tendrils in a garden
Older now, you pull books from the shelf and read poems
writing down new last lines of your own in a little notebook
And later, after you’re asleep, Pluto seems so far away
I sometimes use the pencil I know you’ve touched
Jeffrey Hermann’s work has appeared in Hobart, Pank Magazine, Juked, Houseguest Magazine, and other publications. He lives and works in southeast Michigan.
Image via Pixabay
The Cabinet of Heed 