Absence


You're a full stop. A clock
I know it's time to go to bed by.
The hours shuffle sleepless
into line behind you — you
ball them up in sheets,
gather me between
their smooth white surfaces.

I'm more of a comer,
find it hard to end things.
The hours
stretch in moonlight like a line
of dotted counters — bleed
dark halos round the sun.

Soon, the ticks and dots and colons,
will slip the lines beneath my eyes,
loop themselves around my fingers —
five tiny nooses
of action — and I'll say:
give me something, anything.
Tell me what to do.