Sore

Alarm                    no, please, five more minutes

drag       out this fleeting comfort

                Alarm.  Not enough,                       never enough time is gained

by five minutes of sour disappointment.

                I lurch outwards               strong sudden moves

are the only way to commit myself

to the morning.                                Oh!  Sleep does                not

                relinquish its hold so easily, like chains

hung round the neck.       Pain lances through tendons

                                sore, so sore.

I am up, slapping the alarm with one hand,

                massaging my neck with the other.  I stumble

around, eyes blearing with longing

                                for hours needed and denied.  I quickly get my chaise

on and slump into my desk chair.  But no

                amount of massaging is sufficient to free

                                my neck from jealous sleeps revenge.

       I don’t want to go, but I must, things to do, a whole ros-

                                -ter; to that end I lift my weary frame

and proceed upstairs to searing hot streams

                of water ejected from a shower head.  Ribbons

of water sluice down my frame.  I tilt my neck into the

welcoming spray and let it knead my tightened muscles.

                Steam clears my befuddled mind and I shove my

face into the spray, letting it wash over my eyes and clear

the smog of sleep.  Sweet coherence!  Shaking off the

                brutal taxation of sleep on me.  So good, so coveted,

and so cumbersome.  With reluctance, the shower ends,

and towels dry me down.  The day is ahead and ready now

but the soreness will not really be shaken until sleep come again.