Backpack Full of Emptiness

Pastel couch cushion, wax hardened
     from last night’s candle,
light left on in the kitchen, darkness
standing before it like a solid shadow
draping the room in grey, stove
shining with wandering oil.

Fan in the window hums a hymn
for Tuesday night, burned
spot on the lampshade sizzles under

its breath. I watch the quiet like stored rain,
     and the cloud: the backpack

lolling on that kitchen chair, its belly
     a proud, full achievement,
licking its zippers one by one.

I can almost see it on your back, a crazy
     monkey, sleeperhold round
your neck. That almost happened. I
should put it away, unpack it.

Resting on the chair next to it, how
close you came to leaving.

Sleepless

Dad, I’ve inherited your sleeplessness.
I count passing cars, watch headlights
sweep across the white plaster of my walls,
knobby elbows of paint illuminated
for a moment, then dark. The ambulances
here flash blue.

There are lorries on the street,
even at this hour. My windows
shudder in their frames when
wind blows from the southwest.
I sometimes get up and find a thin
book to wedge in the space, then
I end up with spray cleaner
and paper towel in hand: my windows
are always dirty.

I cannot find curtains thick enough,
the sun pulls itself up
like a dying man from the ground
and my eyelids sense it,
like fingers drawing near flame.

I have taken the clock down
from the wall. If it’s past
seven when I wake, I jump
upon the second hand and ride
in circles on my own preoccupied
ferris wheel. And that ticking.
Sometimes I think my heart has
turned to cheap plastic, its beat
now some dimestore clink.

It used to be your footsteps
thudding at four in the morning.
You cursing under your breath
if you shut a door too hard.
I would have an urge so deep
it made me frantic, to run
out the front door after you. Not
to stop you, or even to ask where
you were going. Maybe just to watch
you leave.

And the thing was, I knew this wasn’t
ominous. I knew this meant an early tee-time,
or editing an extra chapter or warm
bagels when I got up. But your
sleeplessness scared me, it turned you
into a restless spirit of night. Children
can understand these things sometimes:
sometimes the quiet searches
are the most desperate.

I didn’t get your diabetes, or your
high blood pressure. Instead I have
your restlessness, your precariousness
on a mountain of sleep, the plummeting
into insomnia of your kinetic mind.

Copyright © 2001 Joelle L. Renstrom