It's Still Life

The Ragged Edge of Sleep

I.
Even as I dream, I hear his sleep.
I’ve come to expect it, the way you
expect water to be wet, and I wonder
about the depth of my dreams if his
sleep was no longer mine to hear.

II.
Mine was an embalmering sleep, and
I dreamt of trains, plumes of steam
and gleaming rails straight and hard
and loud as a wedding band, and that
dream was a watermarked night, chased
by cloudy tangles of grey-black sky.

III.
I resign my exhausted sleep to clouds
that roam overhead, those whispering
trinkets in the sky, collecting dust
from fading stars, but my sleep is
too far away, and the sky is postponed.

for dVerse: “Sleep”