Sleep is a Small Central-European Country

My good friend explained it
in that matter of fact way;
small and many-plundered,
Slovakia is a passage for armies
west to east and east to west.
I asked if that’s why
the people are so attractive.
I think about that now in bed
as the country leans to the right,
and into the east;
I feel my social faux-pas
keener than his grief,
closer than the coming sea.
Tomorrow I’ll tell him I couldn't sleep
because I was worrying about
his home, and the way
my good friend explained it
in that matter of fact way.

Ewen Glass (he/him) is a screenwriter and poet from Northern Ireland who lives with two dogs, a tortoise and lots of self-doubt; his poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Okay Donkey, HAD, Poetry Scotland, Roi Fainéant, Bridge Eight, and elsewhere.