SLEEP RITUALS OF THE DEAD
Tonight, like most nights, she'll go to bed first,
and I'll read in the kitchen, where the light is good,
until tired enough to sleep, and when I wake up
without the alarm and somehow before her,
the dawn will be full of birdsong, and the birdsong,
as happens, full of primitive and gratuitous grief.
Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of three poetry chapbooks, Death of the Frog Prince (2004) and Heartland (2007), both from FootHills Publishing, and Strangers & Angels (2007) from Scintillating Publications. He was recently nominated for the second time for a Pushcart Prize.