and the beautiful place that is sleep recedes
along with the frosts that fed my eyes,
dream-lit pools by which to dry wet fur on snow,
and look to the pole to tell night’s green margin
from the day’s while the busy cells within my ears
and brain whistle for sleep’s cleansing rinse.
Sleep which may yet remake my seafloor,
and, by the moon, sweep and reorder it.

Only, too often now I surface among an injury
of pylons, bunkhouses, decomposing cars
to ramble within an Arctic town where my ration
of sunless hours burns wildly and dangerously on.
Now habitual and repetitive and familiar,
my nocturnal journey is alive with grief
as the land is, and the carrion dread is,
as the beautiful place that is sleep deserts me.