awake

when i was seven & i woke up
in the middle of the night
i would lay there & wonder
if i was the only person 
on the entire planet who
was awake-- i marveled over
the fact that if a star fell
i would be the only one
to report it in the morning--
sometimes i'd sit up like
an obelisk & watch the
nomadic headlights of cars
peer briefly into
my dark room--
i would imagined walking in
my pajamas down the double
yellow lines of the street outside
me house-- the cars would be driven
by the tree's shadows-- night puppets
made from moon glow & cicada
witchcraft-- 
i would walk through the empty town
& go back to sleep
on the front porch of our house
as if it was halloween & i 
was waiting for trick-or-treaters--
the older i get the more 
the guitar strings in my forearms 
start to rust & the more
my movements sound like
soda cans spilling from the recycling
bin & onto the driveway--
my wrists are tangled--
a nest of red wires & double
yellow lines to walk down-- there
are shadows beneath my veins
cast by the moon--
i'm trying to cut light into
my body-- 
on my back i think of all
the places i could be laying
when i fall asleep again--
the underside of a leaf-- the
neck of a shoe horn-- the bottom
of the stainless steel sink
where my father is slicing
watermelon even though he should
be sleeping--
he flicks the black seeds out
with the back of the knife &
vines grow thick in the backyard
where the new plants take root--
they eat bites out of the moon
like a great lemon meringue pie--
& then i'm sleeping
& everything has flooded--
the world is full of water
& i'm on the back of
a string ray as she glides along
the bottom of a fish tank-- her
arms flap in measured beats--
her wings are 
the hems of my mother's summer 
skirts-- we fly higher & higher
until i look over the side & below
us is the ocean of soy beans 
& gravel roads & cows laying down
in the rain--
i ask what a string ray is doing here
& she doesn't respond--
i wake up beneath the tree in my
back yard-- pull on a sweater
to cover the rusted tally-marks
i'd drawn on my forearms--
no one needs to know about
the guitar strings i drew
last night from the corner of my
room while the headlights searched
the darkness for me-- 
i swear to you there was a moment
there-- on the back of a sting ray--
from the bottom of the kitchen sink--
from the trapeze of double
yellow lines 
when i was in fact
the only human awake &
i was so big i could
fill the whole night with
my arms stretched out
like the wings of a sting ray--
take a slice out of
the moon & leave the rest for
everyone else who will wake up alone
before we all reunite in the morning
to talk about the fallen stars 
we saw while everyone else
was asleep--