If the poem is a meditation on desire, the impetus to write emerged from the speaker’s insomnia. She cannot sleep, as she makes clear in the first two lines, and the insomnia persists for many hours, as “between midnight and morning” (Line 19) suggests. It seems that this is also a recurring condition, not confined to just one night, and likely caused at least in part by anxiety. Insomnia in its turn produces more anxiety. The speaker is, however, determined to reimagine the distressing condition of sleeplessness in a way that will enable her to see it, as well as her anxiety, in a positive light. Natalie Diaz makes this clear right at the beginning of the poem, when she says, “I don’t call it sleep anymore. / I’ll risk losing something new instead—” (Lines 1-2). Instead, she roots them in natural imagery, making them part of the natural world, and thus less abstract and threatening.

Insomnia and anxiety thus constitute the basic physical condition and emotion from which the poem emerges. They are ripe for transformation through language by a poet and linguist who regards language itself as a physical thing that is capable of effecting change, with words carrying their own physical energy.