Insomnia has me at my window
watching moonlight in a flowerless garden
turn dead stems into haunted skeletons.
I feel the goodbye of petals that once
scented the starfields of night, phantoms
of bright color and perfume sacrificed for winter.
Melancholy deposits its chill along my skin
in pearls of grief because I too feel the frailness
of my resilience to push through the loam
of the coming year seeded with questions.
I’ve pruned the panic of November with
dull scissors down to manageable resistance.
Well, that's what I tell myself in the moments
my teeth aren't clinched with sarcasm.
I curse the dictionary for giving space
to the word unbearable…It stalks my vocabulary.
Also unprecedented has become a weed word for malicious.
©Susie Clevenger 2024
