Here inside our sleep-heavy bodies’ folded pile of slumber,
something like a spider bite in the crook of a rib:
I’m wide-eyed in the dark. The spark of fondness blinks out
and goes. Like you, it’s not gentle: It’s something like an itch, dragging
itself across the length of my sternum. It roils like a hedge
gone wild and raggedy, tearing up its dirt, tangling itself
in the backyard as you sleep. There’s a cat yowling all night
outside this bedroom, full to the gills with your smell.
The black hole of the question unwinds itself, hungrily, in the soft
cups of my ears, scratching: Is this all? It growls. Is this it?
You are snoring and meanwhile my tiny star of love swallows
itself, ravenous, teeth gnashing, down into nothing.
Sarah Dayley (she/they) is a writer and artist from Oakland, California, unceded Muwekma Ohlone territory. Sarah is a Hambidge Fellow whose work can be found in Duende, the Berkeley Poetry Review, the West Trade Review, and on sarahdayley.com.