Suzanne Langlois

INSOMNIA

Sleep is a dog that
keeps running away
like it wants me
to chase it. It likes
this game. I lay out
bait for it—expensive
mattress, silk pillowcase.
I hide in the dark,
hoping it won’t notice
I’m there and come
close enough for me
to grab it. When this
doesn’t work, I chase
sleep with my mind,
getting more and more
frustrated that it does
not love me back,
doesn’t care that it
is rightly mine. And
then, in the afternoon,
in the precious bright
lit hours between work
and dinner, when I am
free to live the part
of my life that is mine,
sleep sneaks up on me,
offers me its soft belly.

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