Haunted

Edvard Munch
"Girl in Nightgown"

 

Haunted

 

I cannot sleep; my mind's too full of him.

What right has he to haunt me, since I vowed

that I would no more think of him aloud,

but store him safe away inside my dim

attic of thoughts?  And if I sleep, I dream

of walking with him through a dappled wood;

then, waking, shadows of his visage cloud

my sight.  The morning's nascent sunbeams brim

with hazy phantoms from the night before

that sharpen in the glare of afternoon;

when evening glooms, I once again make grim

resolve that I will think of him no more;

at night I lie here staring at the moon.

I cannot sleep.  My mind's too full of him.

 

 

© Leticia Austria 2008
First published in Lucidity, in slightly altered form

George Clausen
"In the Wee Hours"