Awake again at an off hour, at
an odd hour, now for several days
on end. Times like 3:13, 3:23, 3:34.
Some combination of threes
after bad dreams.
I’m not going to journal the dreams,
it’s stupid stuff, scare tactics
drummed up by me, designed
to rattle me the most. Strangers yelling
through the window. Me fleeing
to the attic above my attic.
My nerves seem to have risen
with the humidity, with the
overnight lows. They are rising
with the river itself.
When it gets like this, the
river cannot drain. It cannot
get downstream fast enough.
So it camps out in the yard or
suns itself in the kitchen sink.
To settle myself
I go to make a drink
but when I reach into the freezer
I find the river lurking there—
vital cubes
of dirty ice.
The Writing of John B. Randall 