One Wave Lapping
 

He doesn't come out and ask directly

just says, as I'm hunched over the computer

at almost midnight scouring places to

submit poems, “did you sleep last night?”

because so often I do not and am simply pushing.

In other words, he is saying, you must have slept;

it's late, and you're up.

In other words, he's hinting that, instead of sitting

on the floor hunting for acclaim or small recognition

from total strangers, or at the very least catharsis

from various forms of psychological pain, I could stop

scrabbling with words, leave behind those fish markets

climb into bed and scrounge after other sustenance.

It made me sad. I recalled earlier in the day,

having been unable to nap (because in fact I had not

slept well at all), seeing him alone at the end

of the dark hall on that hard bed and suddenly turning,

knowing he was wondering if he were supposed to be

listening out for the child.

I'll give him that: he is vigilant, a good father,

wishes to do better by me, to have the enormous

painful past slide infinitely behind us like an icy slope.

Since I was up, he rolled over and went back to sleep

a small blue whale in a lonely ocean of green in the

aqua-walled room the color of my ubiquitous ratty robe,

the color or an unspoiled sea, of a sadly unspoiled room,

a once-dazzling water-ballet beneath serenades of stars.

I didn't know what to do but tread lightly so he could

dream off more blues, the way long and troubled marriages

sputter and end, not with a bang or even a whimper,

nor with the sound of one wave lapping.

Something we agree on, he and I: the good do

die young; at times, we are alright with our deadness

our mutual out-of-body experiences, and though

we are relieved not to be broiling in Hades' heat

our souls are nearly all the time cold, so very, very cold,

having forgotten completely how to have,

and how to hold.

Copyright Julianza Shavin 11 29 08