Mobile

Mobile

On the pillow, while transitioning our bodies
into sleep via immobility, we must confront
the ceiling, the seams and streaks of paint
suddenly noticeable as the edges of an ace bandage.

If you were a baby, and your bed a crib,
this would be the spot for a mobile, for stars
or clouds to be strung up, suspended
in slow orbit and bringing the galaxy in from outside.

This trains us to accept stillness and staring
as conditions that allow for sleep, to know
that in falling asleep we are falling into ourselves,
that each of us is a universe, ceilinged and spinning.