What woke you from the sleep within my sleep
Through which, so the dream demanded, I had to keep
Vigil, obscurely troubled? What touched your mouth
Stirring lips slumber still numbed apart
Until – my children’s changeling, unbidden child –
Slowly & half yawningly you smiled
Splashing love like water in a time of drought
Back from the ripples of your drowsing into my heart?
Questions now it is morning I dare not ask,
Nor how such memories hollow such dry loss
Before they are forgotten. Against the house,
Stripping the magnolia flask by bruised mauve flask,
Wind flings the rain’s bunched iron filings. You smiled
And I was consumed for a moment, consumed & held
