Awake, Watching Her
 

When she breathes you relax
and feel a little silly
having feared the worst;

then marvel as you fold
silence into sheets
hitched to her bare shoulder

It's always little things:
how whorls of hair
never mar her face;

how she scratches her nose
in the sure manner
of a sleeping hug

rolling towards you;
how her features display
exact ease

even when eyelids flitter
and instruct the body
with expressed cries.

It's your turn to hold breath,
to await eyes opening
like unbound oracles,

to catch dreams
in a whirl of limbs
as you suspend silence.
 
 

Earl Livings

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