While waiting for sleep
I can think about
lost love, or just as easily,
moss on logs, their curving velvet
catching luminescence
from some unseen source

I can feel the fall of my stomach
against the sheets,
I can feel my feet,
toes pressed against heel.
I can pay attention to my breathing,
slow and deep, with satisfying pauses
at the bottom of each breath

Perhaps I feel, at times,
a haunting tug, from just around
the curl of thought,
reminding me that I could cry and cry,
but by and by
I’d need to recognize
these dramas are my own concoction.

I’ll wait for sleep.
It will come, no doubt,
while I’m somewhere else.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 11, 2016