FIRST LIGHT

You lie this morning

quiet as a midnight street,

your sleep half covered

by the hair I tangled.

I stand and watch

In the fading dark,

the day unwraps your face,

brand new on my pillow.

A thin sheet shapes you,

a film that separates the night from now.

The darkness joined us,

now morning slowly clothes us

in new day doubts.

As you emerge

from two dimensions into three,

my thoughts are cast

to how we’ll never be again.

A pale image of your head

projects onto my wall.

I want back the selfish night,

you made no shadows in the dark.

IN HIS SLEEP

The Monday light, such as it is,

fades in on an innocent bedroom;

the clock radio suddenly breaks news

to a silent neighbour.

A white shirt hangs on the wardrobe door

awaiting a slow, warm creasing,

while the shoes still smell of polish

from the time before the time before.

A book lies on the bedside table,

next to half a glass of lukewarm water.

A bookmark juts from the place

where a woman contemplates the misdemeanours

of a wayward life.

He’d read this, smugly,

before he’d put her down

and imagined into drowsiness having such a wife.

The laptop in the living room

is bursting with connections;

its electronic diary waits to blossom

into dozens of reminders of the things he has to do today.

One of those jobs it’s hard to keep

unless you work all hours,

but one, he always said to others,

he could manage in his sleep.

The radio times off,

its purpose this time failed,

while the woman in the novel waits

to end her confession to her latest priest.

It won’t be long before the mobile phone

is ringing, asking them to leave a message,

as they wonder where their manager is now,

not imagining that this time, in his sleep, he’s gone.

END OF A DROUGHT

She started to water his mouth

in the hottest summer of their generation,

time ran dry

and people cried at night from heat,

the sheets too hot

for decent sleep.

Still he dreamed of her

in sweat that would have drowned them both

if not for fortune,

a certain ride

that took them further

than they’d strayed before.

They sat together,

simmered in the coach;

as journey’s end drew near,

shy clouds boiled

above their destination.

They shed their suitcase clothes

in separate rooms on single beds

until he went to ask her

if she had some water

while other travellers gulped beer

in local bars.

As she offered him her lips

he drank without restraint;

the first few drops of rain

kissed a dust dry pavement,

the people flung their windows wide

to breathe in the relief.