In Sleep
Poem 2
In sleep, he comes to me.
When the curtains hang limply side by side
and my hard fists have uncurled.
When the bulbs have cooled
and air passes finely through the gap in my front teeth.
When my neighbors are silent, their cackles frozen until daylight
and my cinammon legs uncross.
And my legs uncross.
When it is blackest and serene
and my shut eyes slide slowly back and forth.
When I am at the beginning.
He comes to me.
He is part of the inside and of the outside.
Of the visions and fantastic.
Of my clean flesh and hot blood.
He swims in bubbling tidal waves of possibility with me.
He binds my wrists with his left hand.
Climbs ancient pyramids at my side.
He tongues my spine.
He flies through green forests under my wings.
He stands at my back, watching, breathing.
He comes to me again and again.
The mark of his sweat staining my chest.
His lips bruising my thighs.
His weight never enough to wake me
and always enough to end me.
He comes to me when no one sees him.
He steps lightly, head bent.
He is a criminal in the dark.
He slips under everything.
Every soft sheet, every alarm, every concern, every notice, every instinct.
He kisses “It’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok” into my skin.
Clears my forehead with his even fingers.
———
I have seen him in sleep.
Stared widely into him.
I see him now.
In clear memories of journeys taken and never proven.
In a sureness that comes from a place other than this.
I have held his sharp presumptous face.
Picked at his open wounds.
Slithered across his green eyes.
Writhed and hummed and begged for more and less.
More and less.
He comes to me in sleep.
