A little bit of poetry for a Friday afternoon

I was going through old issues of the Lancet (like you do) and I came across this poem (again)

night-crossing

i wake to find myself
exactly halfway
between last night and
touching you.

i can tell by this uneasiness.

by the way these feverfews
have come to harm, how
the thin
velvet of their dusted
wings
weaken and fold
beneath a litany of false alarms
halfway
between burning down and coming true.

this is the season of falling satellites, the internal bleeding
of unwritten poems, forest fires for no reason
and i am waiting for news of all
of these, and cannot sleep
until you put your arms around me like a bay
and i tide in and out of you, until we run aground
and have nothing left to say.

you are listing, unsure
if it is my hand in your or yours in mine

if your pulling away will leave me falling behind.

Michael O'Reilly
Ramelton, County Donegal, Eire

(Or if you want the proper reference: O'Reilly. The Lancet 1995; 346: 1543)