We drift off to the unconscious, our foreheads leaning hard-pressed against each other. As if to join our minds in the journey to dream. And indeed it seems we have begun to arrive somewhere when you wake suddenly with a start. Our brows ache.
We shift away from each other. Down to the serious business of recovering from the day's intensity.
To sleep well, our bodies require separate space. There will be no siamese-twin twisted fantasies here.
I curl this way, my open back to you. The bright red numbers on the clock before me are late.
Sleep sounds: a quiet snore that calms into deep steady breathing. You are asleep. It warms me to be next to you at your most vulnerable trusting me with your dormancy.
The bright red numbers are later.
I turn: so. You breathe. I drift off into shallow something. I wake.
The numbers have jumped forward an hour.
I rise and find my way in the dark along the muffled carpeting. Grope for the light switch behind the door now closed. On. Bright. Finished. Off again. Allow my eyes to adjust to the very dark again but still not enough so I navigate back with radar and touch.
Stealthily, I slide back under the covers. You stir but still breathe deep. I lie so--on my back. No--I lie so on my belly. So I float off again.
And wake again and drift again and wander again repeating the pattern with the red march of time beating patiently onward as you breathe and breathe and breathe. Sometimes you tremble. I try not to disturb you as the clock and I attend to each other.
Sleeping (not sleeping) near dawn I am jerked forcibly upward by the alarm. “OH!” deep, guttural grunt. The clock makes loud demands of me. I ignore it. I will sleep (not sleep) now.
You rise and find your way.
3/10/2001
Ingrid Karklins