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.