When I could stay awake no longer, I curled into a tightly made bed. The horns of the moon glowed orange. Tree branches silhouette on the wall, nodding. I said, “tonight I will write about sleeping with you. I will write. Sleeping with you.” I hoped if I lay the dream on my pillow it would unfold like roses and bleed on the page in the morning.

But tarantulas came, robin’s egg blue. Stunned on my plate. Ghost crabs, pink and white, blinked, stunned on my plate. I told the people who sat all around me, “I cannot eat these, they are still alive, look and see.”  But no one would believe me. Their food was full dead and still on their plates. I wanted a dream of beauty, but this order came instead.

I came to the ocean this morning. It’s full cold beneath the balcony, but once I stood in the sun it was too warm for this sweater. A Navy ship diesels across the flat ocean, horizon invisible in the haze.  A small, pink stone leaps into my hand. I tuck it into my jeans where in seconds it becomes an ice cube on my thigh.

I wanted to write  love song today, or a song of praise for the longest night, the shortest day. I wanted to write sea shells but only rusticles came slaloming out the water pipe. I wanted to write.  I wanted.