it being quiet

now,

and [at last] alone, i realize

having clicked off the radio, that i am

empty—

hearing only the 4:00 AM voices from down the hall—

empty from the skin down, and

cold

from the other side of the dirty, frost-licked window

the bed, too, being empty and cold

i wish i somehow could make for me

the soul, or just the body perhaps of a lover—

young and sleeping, naked, with his hair draped just so—

out of scraps of fabric, and old leaves red as copper

under bare, bare trees…

it's all been blanketed over though,

by a layer of silent

snow

i think

this empty insomnia even

is better, in its way,

than

that empty diurnal life, in which i am a great

pretender: going through the motions

of living, when

i can't quite ever hide from the feeling that

i am utterly missing

from

my own

life