A Wake. by Ron Campbell (Ink, colored pencil, watercolor.)
A Wake.
3:59 AM.
Too early to be early morning.
Too late to be late night.
A spoon of two.
Parenthesizing.
Synching,
Synced,
Sunk.
Two tidal breathing.
One dreaming
Of a funeral.
A wake.
4:00 AM.
A sudden jingle.
A violent jangle.
One softly groans.
One sighs.
“morning.”
“morning.”
The Labor of Verticality.
Blood waking bones.
Floor meets four feets.
Bed springs sing
As each gets out
On the wrong side.
Awake.
4:01 AM
See bed.
Sea bed.
Left bereft.
The insomniac’s battlefield.
The nightmare’s launch pad.
Having absorbed all the stresses
Decompresses.
And the comforter crumples
With no one to comfort.
And the sheets meet in a pile of percale
Just like the trail
Of a boat.
A wake.
Emeryville, Winter, 2019.
The Detourist 