Awake

Night noises

startle me awake

from un-deep sleep.

I sit up quickly

and time rushes

at, around, over me.

I am swept up,

and hurtle past

days of hide-and-seek

in a musty Michigan basement,

of the sound of cicadas

and lawns being mowed.

Of parched hills and sprawling oaks,

of swim meets and high school crushes

and running on trails

under a blazing blue California sky.

Of fog blanketing a lost coast.

I grasp at these pictures

as if they were roots

growing along the banks of a fast-moving river

but my hands

slip

and I am borne on

and on

and on.