Seizure
6AM. Morse code
tapping collect
from the underworld.
I cling to sleep, clutch at dream’s
empty cape.
The boy lies next to me,
right next to me yet
nowhere near me at all;
his eyes,
when I yell into them,
are vacant
as the space between stars.
He is a fish, flopping for air.
He is a talking drum from the land
of haywire neurons, a guesswork pulse
whose every odd interval is a held
breath and whose return is a rude guest
hooded and rapping at a door where
although he’s unwelcome he knocks
and knocks and knocks.
Julian Koslow has poems recently published or forthcoming in The Avalon Literary Review and Cider Press Review. He lives in New Jersey with his spouse and two boy