Insomniac’s Prayer

I lie with my body knotted into a fist
clenching against itself,
arms doubled against my ribs,
knees crooking into a gnarl,
legs, side by side, martialled.

My sleep is a war against waking up,
my waking up is a slow ravelling again into dark
when dreams jump out of my skull
like pictures in a child’s pop-up book
onto paper if my luck can catch them
before they dribble away into dingy dawns.

Oh, who will unsnarl my body
into gestures of love?
Who will give my heart room
to fly free in its rickety cage?
Whose subtlety whisper apart my legs,
Thrusting quick like a snake’s tongue?
Who will nudge the dreams back into my head,
back into my bones, where rhyming with one another
like wind chimes,
they will make music whenever I move?