Insomnia
 Matthew Conley

a sort of housekeeping, more
work intensive but less exact.

His clear liquor made mine.

I am a man and I was
sleepy before
and I wanted to write a book about the war which is
to say, the hands.

So I made of it a kind of yoga, like legs
up the wall but damn it I thought the liquor would help me

sleep. . .so here’s the story:

I realize now he wanted to fuck, all those
plans already past fruition, there would be no collaboration,

what a fool’s dress was my excitement.
What a farmer was the bartender, soldier, solid
liquid. A gavel for Halloween.

No wonder no one in this town will fuck me.
Fuck me

I suspect insomnia is something bigger than
it probably is, the way a poem is
meditative if
you don’t know what else
to call it.