Every now and then,
                  I know what the psalmist meant,
fall into a hole in myself
                  and become
the watchman who longs for dawn
                  alone in his watchtower
with his thermos, his cold sandwich,
                  his yesterday’s paper
and the thoughts that throng
                  and pile up like shoppers
on Black Friday, in a crush against the big glass door
                  time-locked, like him.

Today is one of those
                  who knows when
it will end days, when I long
                  for dawn to blow out the stars
and the hills galumph into sight
                  and the sky brighten
and like the watchman, I will be
                  done for now and quit
of what I must do

and never again come to long for you
                  the way I do today,
when I am an endless migraine of longing
                  for my long companion.