Meditation on Insomnia
By Josh Bell
Kung-Fu, a couch, and I might reach
emptiness tonight, stuck on that Midwest
hoo-doo, counting cemetery steps
to a hundred in my head. The television,
that affable poltergeist, will pull me
through. That's what they should mean
when they call it a tube—the tunnel that vision
becomes. Cross-haired and blue. Priceless,
mon cheri, my blessing from a god
thought to be in hiatus, a panderer
between insomniac and dizzy-lashed
sleep. But soft, on screen, she's a walking
stick and a ballerina clown, a glove of liquid
marble clinging to golden kindling.
In this, her latest martial arts affair,
Michelle Yeoh decimates her black-clad
opposition effortlessly, operating
within the impeccable timing of sleep.
It's said the attraction of Hong-Kong
action flicks lies in the fact that no one
acts; the fear is real. Michelle's legs
are too short to stop the motorcycle
after her jump to the roof of the speeding
train, and so she dives from it—the
train, the motorcycle. I don't care
that the fear is real. I've burned a green
candle down to a bowl shaped lump.
As I pass my hand over the flame,
and back, I put a flicker in the light.
I know I read lips because this dubbing
blinds my comprehension—the volume's
too low. Nicely, the shape of her mouth,
and what she says, collide. I, too, have
done my own stunts. At times like this
the need for sleep becomes emotion,
and Michelle, after running as long as she can
from certain death, turns, lets her body
fill empty spaces, enforces herself. Once,
I read that Michelle Yeoh nearly died
on the set of a movie about a stunt-woman
who died on set, one of those layered,
mythical moments when what's been
called Time stops, and it's alright to kill
yourself. There was a blind spot. Michelle
was to jump thirty feet into the bed
of a moving truck with nothing but her
director's word that the truck would fill
the required space. Sometimes, it's hard
to lie heart-side down on the bed. Often,
I don't trust my lungs to fill by themselves
and the blood pressure rises in my ears
until it crunches like footsteps in old snow.
Michelle's real name is Yeoh Choo Kheng.
She danced ballet at four. If I had a straw
I'd suck wax into my mouth, let it pool,
take shape. As tired as I am, who knows
when they'd find me, sleeping with a replica
of empty space on my tongue. After a while,
sleep comes so hard and fast you can feel
like you are falling. Everybody knows that.
Copyright Credit: Josh Bell, "Meditation on Insomnia" from No Planets Strike. Copyright © 2004 by Josh Bell. Reprinted by permission of University of Nebraska Press.
Source: No Planets Strike (University of Nebraska Press, 2004)