Sometimes I lay awake at night staring up at the ceiling

and sometimes it’s ants marching across

and sometimes it’s spiders swinging from the rafters

and sometimes I walk outside and look up at the stars

and sometimes there are airplanes

and sometimes it’s distant satellites

but sometimes it’s shooting stars

and I remember looking for shooting stars

when I was in Baghdad and couldn’t sleep

and could use a wish or two to get me through

but there were only those suicide fireflies,

that laser light show

never stop, always go

and looking up at the stars now,

I wonder what would have happened

if I drove off the base one night

and kept going until I ran out of gas

or out of  luck