Gary Kuhlmann
DEAD SLEEP
I turn off the bathroom faucet and wait
for the sound of draining water to stop.
I stand in the light like a grainy negative, not
the same man who smiled today.
The young girl's hair was like sun coming through a window.
Yesterday, a convict escaped
and was picked up at Plamor Lanes
two hours after he was reported
missing. Right now, my thirteen-year-old son breathes
in his sleep. He used to be so small
I could hold him in my arms.
The windows are dark green.
I remember last night the moon
making the curtains bright woke me up
and I walked into his room
to see how he was. I remember reading that
starvation is only the culmination
of a succession of singular moments. I place a finger
beneath his nose, and beneath the dimensions
run streams and vessels that will never return.
It is midnight, and it is not,
and it is not ever again. The world is dark, and she closes
her mystery, too tired to worry
at the moment about her appraisal, her lab report,
her dead abusive father. We sleep together without moving,
and when I wake up again tonight, I will tell a child
there is nothing wrong.
Location: Iowa City, Iowa Email: gkuhlman@zeus.ia.net Website: http://garykuhlmann.tripod.com/undressed.html Publications: The Cream City Review, The Peidmont Review, Midwest Poetry Reveiw, and Whole Notes; and online in Gravity: a Journal of Online Writing, Music and Art, The Melic Review, The Horsethief's Journal, Stagger, Dust On Our Palms, etc.
