My Father’s Insomnia

He looked ancient to me in the dark.
Sitting in his frayed pajamas
in the hall stairway.
Middle of the night, I’d rise to pee
or to spoon myself a bowl of ice cream,
and there he’d be.

He had a favorite spot
huddled under a long window
my mother covered in rice paper
to mute a streetlight.

Once I asked what he was doing there.
Worrying, he said.
A strange avocation, it seemed to me,
and an unfortunate time to practice it.
I never asked what troubled him.
I figured his worries and insomnia
belonged to him.

Tonight, in the belly of an old country,
I’m dazed by sleeplessness
and try to picture what’s out in the dark:
stones and beauty and sorrow.

By morning, as the cows
sound their mournfulness at waking,
I’m happy to share a stair with my father.
The honey of dawn,
through the papered window,
lights us up,
a pair of comic cameos.