Tomasz Rozycki Writing

Coffee and Cigarettes
 
 
When I began to write, I didn’t know
how poems would change me, that I’d become
some endlessly sleep-deprived ghost, my skin
translucent, that I’d roam the streets as if
 
riding a high and only go to bed
with rabid dawn. The light would find me still
hanging around with friends, flat broke like some
old louse, a varmint, summoned while I sleep
 
by naked skin or even just a sigh.
Sweetheart, I didn’t know what all these dumb
poems would make of me, that it was you
who’d summon me to life, and thanks to you
 
alone I would be visible, in bed
beside you, waiting till you fall asleep.