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 

a 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