Called
and I go
down into it, the hall again
(streetlights, blinds)
all the same all the dark
down into it and do what must be done
with my body, with the patience
that I do not have
fellow sufferer, fellow sleeper, not-
sleeper, seeker
night boat, little sail
in the slow air in the rounded dark
inside the broken night
rudderless elliptical
in the stitched-together minute
minute
minute
365 x night x 8 (new)
x 4
x 2
x 8 again (despair, iron)
x 2
x 1, x occasional, x rarity (fever, monsters, light)
= now
= again
once
Copyright @ 2014 by Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet. Used with permission of the author.
“‘Called’ arose out of years of waking in the night with my son, helping him return to sleep—an experience that I found exasperating, exhausting, and occasionally transcendent. The mental math was one mechanism for moving myself toward the calmer end of the spectrum.”
—Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet