Pandemic Insomnia 

 

She isn’t ready to process global-sized grief, the weight 

of the dead, dying, and soon-to-be-dead 

bodies chestcrushing her sleep. 

She eats peaches in the dark before the fruit spoils,

the pit – a tongued texture against silence. 

 

The silver sink glistens 

with juice dripping from her chin; liquid lit

only by the light of the open fridge. 

She is never tired and always awake,

never hungry but always hungry. The body 

 

is a wrestled, winged thing 

nestled in its own volcanic balances. Are others awake 

with her? Another woman eating her own too-soon-sour fruit,

a man at a green light still on the brake,

a child upstairs waiting for his mother’s shadow,

but that shadow 

 

creeps from a tubed throat, slips like black silk 

until she evaporates and joins the others, 

another part of a temporary sky – that black blanket over us all. 

Sweet-fleshed peaches bitten down, 

and the pits licked clean.