Your gravity, your grace have turned a tideIn me, no lunar power can reverse;But in your narcoleptic eyes I spiedA sightlessness tonight: or something worse,A disregard that made me feel unmanned.Meanwhile, insomniac, I catch my breathTo think I saw my future traced in sandOne afternoon "as still, as carved, as death,”And pray for an oblivion so deepIt ends in transformation. Only dawnCan save me, flood this haunted house of sleepWith light, and drown the thoughts that nightly warn:Another lifetime is the least you’ll need, to traceThe guarded secrets of her gravity, her grace.
Jonathan Coe, The House of Sleep
jonathan-coe, poem, the-house-of-sleep