I stand guard over your fitful sleep. Heat rises, mixes
with your sweat. I watch your fever rage.
It's almost midnight. Planets blink, offer neither clue
nor compassion. The hour's breaking shivers with sound,
draws me to the window below the shingled wings
of the sloping roof.
A bird tunes its throat, swells a single pitch
from the quavering source. Shapes from a far branch
answer, the motif embellished as if caught in a lie.
Notes loosed into an imitation of flight remind me of all
that must not happen in the dark: a soul slipping away,
all vigilance forsaken. I turn back to you, pulse quick
with dotted rhythms, counting out the time
under vein-mapped skin.
|