our night

I can hear the Murder Ballads
                playing on repeat in the background,
he asks if we should walk hand in hand
talk about Proust or why I scrawled red paint
across the canvas             or how the cadence of my words
evokes sentiments as it does.

My only answer is to shrug and give a hand over,
there is no reply to questions I don't understand
they simply are                 or have been    or will be.

                Baritone whispers call across sheets
of a bed never wide enough
                or close enough                                the clear space between us
dissipates until the need to sleep claims me
for it's own fantasy,
                then there can be no connection
physical or otherwise.

Slight touches to a shoulder from time to time
calm timid mutterings                    to sooth,
lightness weighed to perfection
or else lights must be switched on
to remind us (we) of our geography,
wardrobes and shadows illuminated to prove
non existence of monsters.

Or we face the three am wail of the banshee
dragging us from sweet dreams,
only the tight force of arms ropey
from years of yielding horses to a halt
can contain thrashing     screaming,
the deep sounding hush, hush, hush
                you are here I am...me(he)...you are safe
I will never let you go...

                let me go, let me go
                                please, please, please...
                echoes frailly from a mouth.

He will not relinquish      for fear of consequences
until my breath has         sl-ow-ed              to an exhausted pace of after ,
loosens then his cramping limbs.
It could be moments      it could be hours,
I feel like a child                                become one,
while ours sleeps in the next room
peacefully.

By morning it shall be forgotten
                no need for words or explanations
over coffee and cereal
                half chewed toast and the babble
passing over four teeth.

Until tonight,
                when we combine again under feathers
and cotton          to dance electric,
                before others come to claim me as their own.