Insomnia

You can never see the moon
that should be hanging over
Fourth Street and since you know
all about compromise you settle
for yellow circles from traffic
lights that slide across
the bedroom wall.

Most nights are like this—
not being able to sleep.
If you doze it’s usually too
late to dream so you sweat
and don’t even bother to turn
on the fan since like everything
else lately, it only blows.

When the walls begin to talk
or mumble it’s usually a tv
in the next apartment and
for some reason you are back
in your parents’ living room
watching their old black and white
RCA, everyone on the screen
the color of priests and nuns

Your mother is on the couch,
her belly big as a basketball
filled with your sister. And now
your sister with kids
of her own and a son who
is already the age of a good
bottle of scotch. You love him,
he loves the Knicks, but what matters
most is his sweet outside shot.

Every woman you ever dated
must have all gotten together
and taken the early morning express
bus into the city. There’s no other
way to explain the chill
in the breeze that just came
through the window.

And when you hear a cop car
hit some potholes then watch
its red light, the color of the sore
throat you just got rid of, speed
across the ceiling, it makes you
realize how lonely you are.
As the siren fades you almost
wish it would come back, loud
enough this time so you could turn over
on your side, put your arm
around it and fall asleep.

“Insomnia,” a sample poem from St. Andrew’s Head, by Kevin Pilkington.

Chapbook, poetry.
34 pages, 16 new poems
Saddle stitch binding
Acid-free paper throughout
ISBN 0-9727455-1-3

Price: $8.00
Shipping and handling: $2.00

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