Day 574: Insomniac

There's a full moon tonight, have you seen it? Well actually, it was at its apex last night, February's snow moon. 

On the surface this poem is about the moon, and such beautiful descriptions, but really, it's a subtle love poem. Look how the mention of it comes in at the very last line, the last few words - like this is what has been on her mind the whole time, ebbing away underneath the conscious, always what everything comes down to.

Insomnia - Elizabeth Bishop

The moon in the bureau mirror
looks out a million miles
(and perhaps with pride, at herself,
but she never, never smiles)
far and away beyond sleep, or
perhaps she's a daytime sleeper.

By the Universe deserted,
she'd tell it to go to hell,
and she'd find a body of water,
or a mirror, on which to dwell.
So wrap up care in a cobweb
and drop it down the well

into that world inverted
where left is always right,
where the shadows are really the body,
where we stay awake all night,
where the heavens are shallow as the sea
is now deep, and you love me.