“Danish Man Aquitted of Sexual Assaults Because He was Asleep, Suffers from ‘Sexsomnia.’”
—NY Daily News
Why isn’t there a disease
where you do something useful
in your sleep — maybe file my taxes?
Caulk the bathtub?
I need a pedicure. Need to fix this
unibrow. Finish that manuscript.
Can’t you help with that?
I’ve suddenly contracted a sleep-punching disease.
I’m going to cuddle up next to everyone
who believes this shit.
In my disease I tie balloon animals
out of scrotums.
It’s okay. I’m sleeping.
I don’t want to be held
accountable either.
It’s funny your disease manifested itself
at thirty-one years old when you had a pair
of teenage girls in your home.
Curious it didn’t haunt you
on your camping trip
with Grandpa.
If I had affliction where I unconsciously shoved
a pistol into the mouths of people
I loved, I’d tell them:
look, I do this thing
in the night—it might kill you,
but it isn’t me.
Except I’d know
it was me.
I’d sleep in a crypt.
I’d cut off
my own hands.
