My Wakeful Night

Be an angel, Morpheus, and brush me with your

wings—aren’t you the god of sleep? And Holy

Mother, aren’t you the one Flannery O’Connor said was

the Virgin who brought her sleep and whispered, Child?

I would believe anything if you would come. I would

believe I had a dog named Sleep. Sleep I would call,

and my good dog would come and get down beside

me and breathe sleep into me. It’s pointless to ask

why I’m sleepless, yet I like to think it wasn’t

fear but the barking of a dog that woke me—

or was it that thud when snow slides

from the roof onto the shrub of Summer Sweet?

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The John and Mim Poems is a portrait of a marriage and Miriam Levine’s gift to you.