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.