Lineman

Mon, 07/25/2016 - 13:35 -- kamala

Sleep tugs me, these days, at so many moments

Into its soft embrace.

I remember when I was young, I would fight it

Worried about wading through life

Slow and dreamlike

 

Eyes open is how I was taught to be - 

Faces tight, ears cocked, eyes all but

Crazy from being held open so wide.

Nostrils flaring, as we stood shoulder to shoulder

Our tautened brown bodies waiting for the slightest

Sign of danger

To bolt and retreat,

Back to where we were supposed to be.

 

And now when sleep, medicated sleep, threatens

to drag me into 12-hour drugged dreams or

stilted conversation, soggy and sparse - 

I greet it with open arms.

 

Tired of running, we are - 

Tired of the adrenaline that shook me awake

Before I was ready

And wound my chest tighter and tighter

Until it almost shut.

 

Tired of the earth shaking beneath our

Dark feet as we ran,

Our hair ripping out behind us

on a hot desert wind.

 

Tired of the fear that held us

On a high wire singing with current - 

For I am not a lineman

And I do not know how to handle such things.

 

We met a lineman once

He had a fat gold band on his finger and

A sleepy comfort in his walk.

Our tour guide at a museum, he

Told us all about the whaling that took place

Off the New England coast;

Stories of relics and rolling storms,

Harpoons and blubber melting in lamps

Charge his little stature now. 

This poem is about: 
Me
My family
My community

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