I spilled wine on a sleek book of sleep
disorders, sleep
conditions - is sleeping with
my disorder? So are you the red glass of wine, misleading
me because wine curls like the velvet border, the
seductive purring of fatigue,
but it sputters out in insomnia
in the back of your burgundy car.
Red wine, red grapes suckling the Italian sea where they dredged
your mother’s body. Her silk limbs curled into
angular shapes as if grinning a ghoulish goodbye.
Red grapes like the spatter of the insect
splayed out, looking only asleep, slammed onto the leather skin of your book.
You are the grapes. You promised sleep and
fed me the insomnia sickness.
It tasted like burnt cotton scraping charcoal on my lips.