An insomniac coach turns poet.

Skinsaver

by

Robert Ferrier

At 3 a.m. the coach turns bard
seeking defense in verse
yet mired and mesmerized
by a monitor screen
where galaxies explode
to frozen pinwheels
the universe alive
with quick silver stars
diverting his fret
from points in the paint.

Then he senses a miracle
rubbing sleep from her eyes
his four-year-old daughter
transfixed at his side.
“Your skinsaver looks
pretty at night,” she says,
then kisses him and drifts away
a raven-haired sleepwalker gowned
in white cotton.

Her malaprop teases the moment
like a cold star
prescient
and waiting.

Skinsaver…

His muse taps the mouse
eclipsing the cosmos
and offers the lead verse of a poem:

Tonight save skin in the paint
shift defense from man to zone.