The space becomes broken between us
in the frail hours before morning.
Your arm, numbed from sleep,
sends out a detachment of gnarled old soldiers
determined to conquer the vast
expanse of cotton nightgown and skin.
The soft down of fabric clings to your wrist
and you pretend the static is resistance,
the Trojan child's last, fatal stroke of the wooden horse
before it reared, bucking and running break-neck
through the gates of the city, taking prisoners
but giving no quarter.
It doesn't swallow you.
You advance, all sly stealth and sweetness,
your hand knowing before you do that it has found
the perfect place to rest.
This is something soft.
This is becoming what you always feared,
with these things open, your heart open,
the trap door waiting for someone to crawl inside
and settle traitorously in the citadel of your breast.
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