Sleep Talking

3 a.m. treading water, bed sheets crest and fall. The repetitious threnody of hoot owls nests in one sleepless ear, the other is buried in duck feathers. It’s a terrible play - this world, but not a bad musical if you can whistle. I forget where I live. it could be under a stone, it could be the stone itself, now I am wondering what lives under me. This is not a poem you can take to bed with you, it’s a hoot owls' nightmare drilled into the memory of a dead face. Behind a spinning dial of time, feathered astral travelers come to me, they speak good news, of a sort. They have found out where I live, and what part I play in their musical, It is a small non-whistling part.