MIDNIGHT

It's best to go to bed before midnight, before
my confused circadian rhythms get the best
of me and I forget common sense and alarm
clocks and start that wide-awake prowl
through dim rooms with lost corners to the seat
beside the black window where I sip
solitude like wine and taste
the quiet, not a silence, but a different
kind of noise, as if shadows
could muffle your ears and only fearful sounds come
through like the sudden creak of a coffin's lid and you
gasp/laugh, embarrassed, because it was your own chair
squeaking and then you're past the scare
and you hold this hour like a hungry man
holds his plate with his forearm on the table and his hand
curved around the rim
and that plate's not going anywhere,
and you hold this because
it's yours, you possess it
and no one wakes to wrest it from you.