Pull them from their soap boxes,
these poets,
these preachers,
these dreamy-eyed sleep wreckers,
these shivers in the night.

Their words are made of anxiety,
this shaking,
this thunder,
this stirring of the water,
this pungent drone.

Tell them we are sleeping.
We do not wish to wake.
Tell them that our ears are filled
With mud from the stomach of lakes.
Shut them up, whatever it takes.

Drown them in the current,
the walking,
the awake,
the heavy-footed neighbors,
the bare-hearted teeth.