When

when sleep lay awake,
watching sound drift away, slowly,
like the hush over a platform
as the last of the train angles away,
and shoes and wheels fade into spaces,
tracks cannot follow
in straight lines;

because sleep lay awake,
long after the last bird
had sung its last lullaby,
even the ones dressing
to hatch the next morning,
silenced by a circadian rhythm
of dark fear and finger-crossed hope,

I wish i could tell you when it happened,
sometime after the quiet began,
when the night was a parody
of its shadowy self,
a child’s charcoal drawing
on a damp canvas square,
a string puppet tied to its own
shackled hand;

sometime when sleep still lay awake,
and the birds had laid their voices to rest,
when the night hung from the moon
like a shrivelled caricature,
I wish i could tell you when it happened,
when the wheels turned away
from the lines,
when the marionettes began to whirl,
when the tears came
and when alone became lonely.