96poems/423am

4:23 a.m.
Newspapers plop on sidewalks,
the unexpected screech of tires
against the morning street,
the engine piercing the moist air.
I press my back into
the soft sofa cushion
and try to meditate.
There is no other place for me
but with God.
I have no one else,
just this, and the necessity
to care take words,
to wake in the night,
to carry phrases to a page
because that is what
life has given me
to do.

6/26/96