Ravel

Tonight, Maurice, the moon is cold and wet

      like a back-of-the-fridge orange. I left a lemon

in the fruit bowl for too long — sorry. That’s what stinks

    of penicillin in the garage. And the banana peel in the

         car, too; nearly gone; a ribbon of black. 

             There’s no meaning to these fruits, as much as the 

    French symbolists may argue otherwise. I am in bed

      sick as a dog and the bedside cabinet is flooded with
   
light, streetlampy, almost artificial, even though it’s just

    the moon, even though something is never just itself.

I dreamed a song last night. And of course I forgot

     it, but I remember its beauty like a shell on my teeth.

It was the most glorious piano trio; Maurice,

  I think it would have made you proud — if the Lamictal didn’t

     make me forget everything and my name in the morning.

The absurd duration of a night, filmy with hours; how should I 

  know when to sleep and when to dream and when to wake 

with longing? The light remembers what it has gazed upon,

       and though I don’t remember my flickering eyelids,

I can imagine how they would have been, as I slept.