In the middle of the night
you mean so much to me, my love,
that if you die before me,
I’ll flee to the freezing lake
where the cold water will console me
until you reappear, a miracle,
just as I go under.

In the middle of the night every fear echoes,
waver after wave, relentless,
the world too big, my heart too sad.
My eyes forsake me
in the darkness and the Darkness—
where people die, or are already dead,
and I can never do enough.

In the middle of the night in the nursing home
I watch my mother die,
and dreams desert men, 
and I lose hope.
Women in their long nightgowns
dream of who they used to be.
Men reach into space, and long for home.

With wild eyes they cry. “Where am I?
Who am I? What’s my name?
How could I have come so far,
with no place to go?”
In the middle of the night,
in the middle of the night,
in the middle of the night.