Punching the clock [work in progress]

What is it about 3 a.m.? My internal clock seems to know when the hour has arrived, regardless of the time I climbed into bed or when I need to start my day the next morning. And suddenly I’m awake, thinking of everything from practical worries to—of all things—whether I’m happy with the latest revision of this poem. I’d like to say this piece is finished, but I know better than to be so definite. So let’s just say I hope this is its final form. You can listen to me read this piece here.

3 a.m.

sleep eludes me
flutters my eyelids
teases me into bed
then sits heavily
knocking Annie Dillard from my loose grasp

but behind eyelash curtains
sleep melts out into goose down
revealing cold words
that circle through my mind
words I should not have said
the ones I left unspoken
words you refused to set free
the ones that poured from you
spinning like an unbroken record
refusing to pause or leave a breath
for sleep to slip through

I begin to count words
like sheep jumping tightly strung barbwire
and discover just how many
conversations, sleepless nights
they represent
until minutes grow into hours
and I wake
to concrete-colored dawn

—Julie Laing