Monday, December 2, 2019

Snoring in Japanese


As I lie in bed between dreams 
in today’s early morning hours
I could have sworn you were snoring 
in Japanese

I found this to be 
particularly amazing feat
since I am fairly certain 
you do not speak Japanese

then I realized 
I had no way of knowing 
if it was Japanese or Mandarin 
or Cantonese for that matter

however
your sounds had 
what seemed to me
all the proper inflections of 
an Asian language with its rising and falling
like small gentle waves where 
everything seemed to end 
like a question I could not answer 
since I did not know the language 

Now wide awake and
listening to the indecipherable 
while studying the lunar landscape of
the bedroom ceiling
I got up to have a glass of water

and upon my return I noticed 
your language of sleep had changed
from a personal dialect 
to the sounds of a small purring kitten

and just when I had done 
some preliminary analysis of this new development 
my stomach began to answer you with 
its own language comprised of 
a series of internal sounds generated
most likely
from warm pipes complaining
of cold water

So 
there I was
4:00a.m.
listening to our conversation 
with it’s rhythmic call-and-response 
that neither of us had any control over
and I was disappointed that you were
sleeping through the whole conversation


Anyway
I just thought you 
should know.


Ken Owen   
Van Niddy Press,  November 2019

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