sleep without paper

(A misread of a book title by Michael Hannon)

A glancing blur
head turn just out
of focus, without glasses
from a distance moving
in a subway car world of
station signs and glowing
screens, I saw

But I didn’t. I thought
I had but I hadn’t. It looked
for that second but no one else
was looking where I was
or

         So much we miss
in our own bubble reality
meaning undeciphered Babel
without the Tower. The trek
alone we take surrounded
by everything, and yet
not

and yet not.

stevenallenmay is a poet, owner/publisher of Plan B Press, collector of poetry chapbooks, blogger and collagist. He is the author of Plastic Sunrise and a number of poetry chapbooks. He looks for poems the way the Easter Bunny looks for the perfect hiding places for his eggs.