You can see it
even now,
in relief against
the bleak and colorless
light of dry day—not so much
the slack and ruinous
drowsy cotton
cloud of an idea—but
the actual word;
a fierce but impotent emblem,
with its alluring snakes
of composite ciphers,
emblazoned (in all-caps)
across a slab
of cool pink
tombstone marble:
SLEEP—the silent
and ultimate temptation;
the one that has
no need
to negotiate.
It only has
to wait—
curled and tightly quiet
in every bleak and undusted
corner of your life
for luster
to fade,
for your resolve
to falter,
for the inevitable moment—
you start to ask yourself whether
you might
not rather—sacrifice time
in the name
of some space.
