The book isn’t quiet at night.
My mind tosses to turn the pages quicker,
so I might fall asleep faster.
The book doesn’t quiet.
The pages turning sound—
the slow waves of an ocean,
causing the hermit crabto long for the sea.
Ticking against the plastic hermit crab aquarium,
hermits make up their own laws of time. Longing
just to reach the sliced trees that lay as the floor beneath me.
Knots come out on the floor under my bed
begging to tell the stories of their wood rings.
Hundreds of years of uncut life—until suddenly,
streaming out on branches from every tree—is compacted
into the paper on this page
and into the hardwood underneath
that begins shifting slowly to driftwood.
Standing still with the grains of time resting at my feet.
Hearing the sea crying out too for some sleep,
the sea crying out to be a pond,always resting.
With every turned page,
the sand brushes, wanting the hermit ***** to come back
from their hand painted, tattooed shells.
To dance once more on the sand beneath the sea foam,
under delicately night speckled atmosphere
beneath a far off silent observer
we humans call the man in the moon.
Turning pages are slowly closed,
placed aside once more,
left alone to stare at hermit *****.
Hiding in their hermit crab aquariums, they
await the 6am alarm clock’s tick.