An older friend complained of monkey brain,
at breakfast, after shattered sleep one night.
I understood; she didn’t need explain
the time awake, the way her thoughts would light
from cares to frets to worries like a chimp
in manic swings, unsettled, never still.
Advising her to let her head go limp
as legs asleep, instead she took a pill.

In time I caught the problem, but I heard
my words – I didn’t pay the monkey mind.
Rejecting care about awake conferred
a gentle rock that wafted. Now I find
sufficient sleep a trait I rest upon;
my thoughts in bed glide smoothly as a swan.