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