SUMMER INSOMNIA It is 4:19am, and the only tools I have for this time of day: sheet, pillow, ceiling fan fail. The meager breeze cannot quench my middle-age furnace. I turn my pillow over and over, looking for relief, shade, the cool side to slip my palms beneath, hoping to open a spigot of ocean wind to sway me in my hammock back to sleep, to release me from gravity and this balmy plane, but my eyes are wide now. I’ve seen the first nipple of light, the sky the color of iced tea on its way to sunflower as dawn, without qualm or questions, wrenches open the tender darkness.
HEATHER HUTCHESON