Roy Jacobstein

I doze in tranches and planes, 
      angled acutely 
            like some Cubist harlequin. 

Easy once, that nightly pirouette 
      into REM sleep, 
            but what with the road rage, 

dirty bombs, malevolent spores, 
      it's clear that's Oblivion 
            whose sulfurous wheezes

are singeing our neck-hairs,
      hence my new habit 
            of sleeping with the lights on— 

which doesn't mean sleep's 
      a bad thing, in fact 
            its lack makes everyone's bones 

cry out, and right now my vertebrae 
      are emitting a cascade 
            of wails to do a banshee proud. 

O numinous world!, where a thing 
      so routine, so banal 
            as tonight's pastel sky

still takes one's breath, even as out there 
      they're searching for the next 
            seven year-old stolen from her bed 

while asleep, and cactuses in the desert 
      (where the body waits) 
            already are entering bloom.


Copyright © Roy Jacobstein All rights reserved

Marlboro Review
Verse Daily, 2006
Poetry Southeast