Order Now and Then: Poems here.

It had been a long day’s grind into inanition. In bed I tried reading but fell asleep. I got up a while later and walked in the dark. I knew all the sharp corners and the distribution of toe-bruising dangers—like the mini-grotto of amethyst crystals in a halved chunk of stone, the heavy meditating Buddha made of resin. But near the kitchen I bumped the dining room table and heard a muffled patter like a dropped jigsaw puzzle. I flicked on the light. Some jigsaw pieces lay scattered on the floor. Not many. It took just minutes to pick them up. I could see right away where they fit in the nearly-done puzzle, but after I finished placing them there were some left over. It made me smile. I went back to bed and continued to read until I woke up. In my lap was Now and Then, by Murray Moulding, which I’d finished in my sleep. I thought sleep-reading, which made me smile because Now and Then is a gathering of sleep-written poems. You have to finish assembling each one yourself. And when there are pieces left over, it’s all part of the pleasure sleep-written poems provide.