View from a Sleep-Deprived Early-Morning Dog-Walker

Everything’s okay

with you and the world

when your eyes stay open

in the dark all night——

two little planets

orbiting with the other constellations

tracing various shapes

in your convoluted network

of dendrites and axons, and when

at five a.m., your room is lit

with the moon of your sister’s face,

saying, get up, it’s time

to walk the dogs——

so you go, shuffling in slippers

with fleece and scarf and hat

down the street, with the well-

rested dog at the end

of your leash, burrowing

and exploding from heaps of leaves,

like sunbursts of joy, over

and over, bounding

and boundless, lighting

the pre-sunrise morning——