Staring eye insomnia
in the middle of the night,
the eye open
in the heart,

the chest's retina
flooded

& light wounding
the milkless nipples.

Sleep recedes
like a missed train.

Life, which is anyway
a long night without blinking,
a night which an eyelid
can obliterate,
shrinks to a point of light
on an open eyeball.

Terror writes poetry,
hope, prose.

I rise in the night
led by the single staring eye
which peers from my chest,
& begin to write.

Dear God:
I have found what I wanted
& find
I was wrong to want it.

The odd species I belong to
fears depth
& in its fear
brings death everywhere.

Let me not be like them.

Let me not be.

Let be.

© Erica Mann Jong

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