Martin Balgach

ON SLEEPING AND NOT SLEEPING

People have been talking
on the television for hours

Their voices fall like gunshots
that forgot to go bang

As if outside the window
I could hear ants
walking on snow
with mouths full of crumbs

And I'm tired from two nights
of broken sleep
a kinked-up neck
leading me out of bed
so I can remember to remember
what it was like
for my father
in his hospital bed
pissing through a tube
for months
How glad and sad
it makes me
to stand above
the toilet

As tired TV light
punches the dusty window shade
I climb back into my bed
that's still warm
from a body
I've come to mistrust

Martin Balgach's writing and criticism has appeared or is forthcoming in The Bitter Oleander, Cream City Review, The Dirty Napkin, Fogged Clarity, The Puritan, Rain Taxi, and elsewhere. He works for a publishing company and lives near Boulder, Colorado. More of his work can be found at www.martinbalgach.com.