Instead of Asleep

a poem

Photo by Daria Shevtsova from Pexels

I lie awake
upon the sheets
where you lay dreaming
days ago
in my arms
or was it me in yours?
recalling once more
the gentle soft of your skin
beneath my fingertips
the scent of perspiring
Pastis and cigarettes accompanies
the rumbling melody of your breath;
a lullaby I’d not known before
and may do better to forget
lest I fall in love anon
instead of asleep
before dawn.