Insomnia
Songbirds start early dawn
at four, their shrill voices
a congress, brief lapses
between their song.
My head hot against a damp pillow,
alert, restless, my body log-still.
Endless stretched out hours,
no brain power to read—
thoughts not cognizant—my mind
an internal cacophony, like a Jackson
Pollack splattered canvas
inside a far too active brain.
Julene Tripp Weaver, a psychotherapist and writer in Seattle, worked in AIDS services for twenty-one years. Her third poetry collection, truth be bold—Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards, won the Bisexual Book Award and four Human Relations Indie Book Awards.