another poem today

after "Waiting" by Alice Friman, published in The Gettysburg Review, Summer 2004:

Waking

Dawn isn’t soon enough
to pull me up from dreaming.
Compared to action, what’s so sweet about
shagging z’s? Think greyhound—the gate,
the elusive chomp
                           after the rabbit’s
loin and the greedy racing touts.
In the waning night, my feet itch,
dreaming is idleness. Even Sleep,
necessary, yes, but come one sound
she too is leaping from the bed.
No fire, no hail, no siren call
but pumped up and yearning, ready to stare
rapt at the eyes of a full moon.
                                              One bang,
one thunder clap, one hypothetical
melody plays, and there it is—the true
heart-throb of the new day, that tingle
in the ribs thumping out
the piccolo’s whistle and wild hoarse
ache of the oboe, probing into
the mystery it was hollowed out for.
The opening chord.
                            Listen, the day
wakes when it wakes. There’s no stopping
the roll out. Stand on the carpet.
The fibers caress, and out there—hear?
Night exits tapping tambourines, those castanets
of silver, that crystalline clang.