Insomnia

Please bring camphor compresses, a plate of sky, a glass of dusk.
To revive fried lilies dissolve aspirin in sugar water. Make me
a pillar of crystal, Lot’s wife turning back to the city.
Because she will not give up worldly things, we call her Salt, Diamond
of the Dead Sea, but she does not answer. She sings in her sleep,
head ringing. As a child, I thought death meant pause
a few weeks of oblivion. I thought pass away meant
boarding a train at Grand Central. Dusk after dusk
face pressed to the window, past pale barns and bridges
collapsed in snow. To disembark nowhere
and wade in witchgrass to my knees. Here
is a field, whoosh of deep-shaft mining. Here is an ocean
stretched along brackish pond flats
like a pearl necklace, rendered salt and mistaken for light.