that you cannot get
to sleep, perhaps
try to count
not all your blessings
or sheep,
but the hundred billion people
who have loved
and lost before you;
and if that's not enough
to swiftly do
the trick, you can
count up their
paper-thin
eyelids as well;
watch in your mind
as they crumple-
down closed,
two at a time—
as pretty
but disconsolate
as second-
prize roses—
just to make way
for the acumen of yours,
and the turbulence
they hold tonight.
