Sonnet #325

 Nothing prepares us for a restless night

We expect — we always expect — to dream

Expect to wake refreshed and stretch the light

But when the air is still and calm and we seem

Unable to breathe inside of it, unable to settle

It always comes as such a surprise, a gift of time

In darkness, a gift where we are left to wrestle

Out the ransoms of the daylight, scrape the slime

Off our psyche, read a book, go for walks, be still

Here is the restless hour, the long night, ticking clocks

Alone in this limping, humid storm-swept swell

To think and think and think until the mind is locked

And the windows finally shut, and night guests ramble

Until their voices stop, after the party, and words untangle