Everyone is Looking

by Anne Mikusinski

The window opens
Its soft hiss ushering in
Unseasonable air
And Fitzgerald's dark night
A companion to my
Restless lack of sleep.

Outside the street is quiet
Inside my thoughts are active
Crowded and awake
An interior monologue
Of loud uncertainty.

To drown it out
I listen
To someone else's story
Told in a threadbare velvet voice
Its timber, rising and falling,
Soothes me back to sleep.