a night kitchen

The wave washed me ashore, my legs heavy with sleep.

The wave — the wave, not water but sleep.

I don’t move, so as not to throw off the last bits of it, until I remember the pencil within reach.

And fall back down.

Calendars run too slow to wear on your wrist

You’d have to hold too still

Don’t move your arm or the sun won’t fall just right, and it has to —

The world will be disjointed if you move, the page not wide enough to hold what it must —

The page flips every thirty midnights, and fans your wrist as you walk by.