The birds are up at night.

(Insomnia.)

"Why are you still up?" he asks.
"I dunno." The birds are loud, chirping.
"Mm," his throat responds, so I reply, "Goodnight."
The birds continue chatting. I sit up, awake.
They must be just outside the window, I think.
There's a melody, I hear, like an ear worm that would resolve
if only the next line of lyric I could recall.
I stand up, shade my eyes, squint, leaning on the glass.
A nightingale? A lark? It's too dark to tell, but the birds keep on.

I whisper, "Come, listen," but he does not wake for me.
"I think you'd like a song they're singin'."
Hours pass, and he turns over, arms reach out, around me.
By then, the nocturnal choir has retired,
no sound left but the lazy coo,
summer's sound:
a mourning dove.