The Problem with Waking Up

Ann Politte

Because the night is used up
spent sleeping, wasted, twisted
and now wakes dully scratching
goose-flecked skin,

and because a lost night's thoughts are the language of dreams
jabbering nonsense behind moist eyes shut tight
against an inside vision, something amazing and profound,

and because that image--
internal, vague, without a name,
flares, then smolders, fades so fast,
evades a grasp on real or sham--
precise translation decays
in morning haze.

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The 2River View, 1_4 (Summer 1997)