Morning  you lay sleeping

Your small body clinging tightly to mine
With frightening dependency

Life defining  impossible to betray

And with that

The mattress rose

Set adrift on the burgeoning emotional tide

Colliding with the once stationary objects
Of an uninhabited life

What had been concealed
Was exhaled from god knows where

Colour-drained  unsalvageable

Shape shifting

And  with function relinquished
Resigned from service

Two blue sleeping bags
Nudged against one another

Bearing the once warm imprint of our bodies

The sun-baked stone garden
Retracted its promise

It was cold in that place of perpetual summer

If you were afraid you didn't show it

You who were born bearing the face
Of irrepressible grief

So as not to disappoint you
I lay motionless

Rapt by the rise and stall of your breathing

Your fingertips and thighs

Quietly affirming my place at your side