pleiades

my father has stopped sleeping.

he is awake by dawn,

memorizing the contellations:

"Orion," he says, aligning my hand to his.

"The Seven Sisters."

my father has stopped sleeping

at midnight he reads Steinbeck

on the living room couch;

by one o'clock he sits in the dark at the table,

his head angled in shadow.

at times I feel him watching me,

reflecting long nordic bones in a doorway

his eyes grey to my blue, the same blank face.

my father has stopped sleeping:

I come home to his quiet humming on the patio

filtered through the constant cadence of the ocean

his time metered out by the passing cars.