Insomnia

She has spent her nights crawling the walls
of her bedroom, tossing and turning
in dark hours crowded with loneliness
and unfulfilled desires: lost
beneath a moonless ceiling while orion
plays hide-and-seek with the curve of the earth.

she knows the sound of the paper boy
slamming the front door and feeding
hungry letter boxes their daily diet
of vellum and ink; lies that rattle
cold and metallic at 4 a.m.

draco, draco, she whispers to the shadows
as cats bluster battle cries
beneath her window. or
is it the irascible offspring of her
next door neighbours? or the wind,
perhaps, filling out
these hollow spaces
september has left beneath the stars

she has lost half a lifetime searching
for the brightest star in the sky when
she should have been looking
for the 48th.
inchoate, she is hunting now
for something else
entirely.