Gift

In a night made small

by coming too close to daylight,

in a room becalmed

by knowing the calm will break,

I wake. In search of water,

I find you sleeping on a sofa

when I imagined you safe

in the warm bed I have just left.

Shocking, this displacement, as if

in a second, the bed has emptied,

the sofa just been filled

by your immediate body, fallen too white

into a spotlight angled to receive you,

eyes hollowed under eyebrows,

forehead and cheekbones burning bright.

You open your eyes and look at me,

not smiling.

Both of us there, not there, surprised

to find each other superimposed

on empty space.

You, fallen out of sleep.

I, expecting no one. It is as if

from a dark window a curtain lifts

for just one moment

and where there should be only black

outside, a face appears

still and calm,

perhaps a gift.