Insomniac in Center City
I climb aboard the trolley like a Madagascan
fat-tailed dwarf lemur, which hibernates
six months, vanishing half their lives
into sleep. Lemures [Latin]: spirits of the dead;
roaming at a slow pace. Humans can spend
twenty-five years asleep. I sleep so little
it’s like I’m always sleeping. Look, it’s snowing
on the dogs of Clark Park. A cow
can sleep standing up but only dreams
lying down. The Oaxaca Cave Sleeper fish
has no eyes. Does it dream? To locate
sustenance in a nutrient-poor environment,
it veers toward vibrations. As I am a poet
in Philadelphia, this resonates. Bone-weary
on the packed trolley, I stand, bovine.
With each blink I dream. On Market Street,
circadian lopsidedness. A man in a plastic bag hat
shrieks. I step, like an extra in a school play,
out of the frame. I shut my eyes. Insomniacs,
after a day, nod off. A few seconds at first.
I’m jarred awake by a brass band on North Broad.
Two men on horses pass me, clip-clop, in the snow,
among the cars. I veer toward them. I climb
on a horse, roam at a slow pace, over a parking lot,
under a bridge. A cop waves to me. An addict
in a garbage bag tent waves to me. The mayor
waves to me, lowers his sash around my neck.
The snow is rising to the horses’ knees. Who cares?
Now I’m the mayor of Broad Street. The mayor of snow.
• • •
John Wall Barger’s poems and critical writing have appeared in American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review Online, ZYZZYVA, The Cincinnati Review, Poetry Ireland Review, and Best of the Best Canadian Poetry. His sixth collection is Smog Mother (Palimpsest Press, 2022). A contract editor for Frontenac House, Barger teaches Creative Writing at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia.