Insomnia

By Amy Shaw

Maybe it’s because
These hours are quiet
Without bread or shoe
Dropping on dirty floor

Maybe it’s because
I am alone needed
No more   Maybe

It’s the darkness
Which somehow feels
More vivid and light
Than the dreams I had

Maybe it’s the wine
I drank with dinner
Maybe it’s my fault

The dishes undone the bed
Unmade the face unkept
The homework unchecked
The picture unframed

No one would call me
A clean freak—though I was

Voted “Most Likely To Succeed”
In the seventh grade   Maybe
It’s because I did
Succeed   The bills are paid

The children fed the husband
Satiated a job well done today
My patient said I cared
More than the doctor

And me just a PA—always
Just a—

Stepmom white divorced woman blessed
The waitress asked
“Are you just one?”
Before I sat down to dinner

On my own   I thought—
Not really
Sometimes but usually
Only at night—

Amy Shaw is a cardiology PA living and working in Cheyenne, Wyoming. She turned to poetry after the recent election to focus on the personal in what feels like a world coming apart at the seams. Her poems have been published on PoetsReadingtheNews.com.

Photo credit: Jim Pennucci via a Creative Commons license.