What puzzles has it not placed before your vision?
What questions, what demands – this mumbling Sphinx?
But at its side is an unnoticed companion –
sly, obsequious – the neutral third party in
a rendezvous with punctuation marks.
You try to dispel it but it keeps returning.
It’s not a thing known, but a sort of procedure,
a commotion that keeps itself busy,
ancillary to the bigger activity,
that allows things to resume their respective shapes –
like the mobile that whirls before you sleep,
like the phantoms that promenade before you sleep,
accompanying you on your way into sleep,
releasing you on your way into sleep,
rushing ahead of you on your way into sleep.
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