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NIGHT WALKER
I wonder why
suddenly
it's no longer a matter
of trying to get to sleep, but
of getting up
in the middle of the night
and walking -
not going anywhere in particular, just
moving, and why,
suddenly again,
Barbara comes to mind.
Barbara -
lying in a graveyard.
Not lying dead.
Lying with a lover.
The lover was a
homeless drunk
and being Catholic
(Barbara wasn't) he liked
the crosses in the graveyard,
liked to sleep surrounded by
a forest of crosses. Her friends
thought he was bad for her,
that she should leave him, but it was
him who left her.
Was he just
moving on? or was it
that he cared for her?
And so she finished up
with another drunk (she
didn't drink)
who was dying of cancer.
Oh for a love like hers!
She wouldn't hesitate
to walk out in the night, but I
don't in the end.
I write this poem
in bed, instead.
Then I lie down to rest.
I wonder which one of the two of us
loves God the most?