Highways and Byways: Woke (Part 2)

By Maik Strosahl

Last week I talked about many things that disturb a trucker’s sleep. One I did not cover was waking with an idea.
    I wake a lot with ideas I have to capture before they are forgotten. Perhaps a dream or a replayed memory that somehow must be shared with the world. So I rise, get a piece of paper or my phone and bang out what I can.
    I will admit, many of these ideas are pure garbage when looked at with a critical morning eye, but once in a while I strike gold.
    So, last week, in Kincaid, Illinois, jarred from my bunk, I was woke. By the truck, by the storm, and also by an idea that seemed profound in my sleep-deprived haze.
    And I will leave it to you as to whether this one was worth sharing, or if this one should have been wrinkled up into an internet ball and tossed into an oblivion wastebasket – perhaps my losing the first attempt at sending it was proof of a god who...cares.
    Or not.

Woke

These thoughts arise
from the haze of a thick,
humid night,
the sweaty toss
that brings you awake
disturbed

and somehow
they are important,
somehow they must be
written in the sand,
scratched into the earth,
recorded for later examination
when the sun again
cuts through the darkness,
exposing this disturbance
as mere sleeplessness
or maybe something
more profound

So I am roused,
eyes burning,
begging to return
to the dream of her touch,
to the pillow and
comfort of sheets,
just to let you know
one thing
before I attempt to
twist slumber once more
from this mattress:

It is all
just an illusion.

Copyright © 2021 by Maik Strosahl Michael E. Strosahl has focused on poetry for over twenty years, during which time he served a term as President of the Poetry Society of Indiana. He relocated to Jefferson City, Missouri, in 2018 and currently co-hosts a writers group there.