The Later Eighteenth-Century

     for Lexy Chubrich

Your head bobs up and down, lolling 

Neither place definite.  You grasp 

And drop the struggle like your pen.

Better to abandon yourself

To visions compelling you give 
Them form--from fields of pure aether 

They come.  Are those lines notes about 

Johnson?  They do not resemble 

Rational explanation or 

Moral reasoning, but they have 

A certain vigor, lively and 

Muscular their appearance, though 

This has much more to do with an

Emerging sensibility 

Than anything irrational.

Or does it?  What are you writing 

There, exactly?  Transcribing dreams?

Flashes of inspiration?  Or 

Are they feint scribbles to confuse?

These points, squiggles, blotches, circles,

Jots, letters—are they some new tongue?

In trance, eyes closed, your hand traces 

Ouija-like patterns, etching signs

Of what lies between this barren 

Ninety minutes and the dreamy 

Exaggerations of a nap.