The Under Review - Issue 4 | Summer 2021

62
The Runner
MORROW DOWDLE
Sleep’s reject is running an hour or more
before it can properly be called morning.
At Gold Park, a young deer eats grass
near the edge of the playground.
It will be long gone by the time
of the regular joggers and dog walkers.
The runner knows how night’s calm
can engender turmoil, thoughts wild
and racing, a deer chased by a wolf.
The twisted sheets, the in-and-out of bed.
A literal journey towards lost sleep,
its milestones the magazine splayed,
the cup with milk residue, the open bottle of pills
by the bathroom sink. The watch that ticked
off the seconds that sleep did not show its face,
chronicling the passage of night
though she perceived no lightening
of the sky, no shift in the position of stars.
Pink tinges the horizon,
the runner now an arm’s length away,
yet the deer keeps eating, as if it’s forgotten
the rules. As if it’s realized how much fear
is irrational, like the fear of not sleeping,
which drives the not-sleeping, the dread
setting in at bedtime despite dreadful fatigue.
The deer watches the runner calmly,
wolf though she may be. Making her think
about peace somewhere in night’s far reach.
Making her think perhaps she, too,
could stop running.
THE UNDER REVIEW