Difficult to Sleep
By Elisabeth Hallett

Difficult to sleep this way
stretched over the doomed city
pinned down at eight hundred points
each point a planned calamity.
In the wide awake mind's eye
clay colored streets and houses
are a fading photograph
a stony mattress under me.

In the soon to be ruined city
the fathers confer in code,
carefully handle chipped pieces
of their children's faith. The fathers say
Is it time to go to the orchards?
But already the sadness of children
saturates this film I am, silvery emulsion
that registers too much, too little.

Go to the orchards
although the fruit's unripe.
Apricots are hard, green knobs.
Retreat right back into the roots of the trees,
alien people: we don't know your names.
We haven't got your forwarding address.

Elisabeth is author of the books In the Newborn Year and Stories of the Unborn Soul. She also runs http://www.light-hearts.com. And we are thrilled to announce that she has just released a new collection of poetry titled, Still Mystified: the poems in my life, which is available for $12.95 with ISBN 0-595-26536-7!!!