midnight (these rituals of recreation)

midnight (these rituals of recreation)

i. midnight

i walk into the bedroom just before midnight

watching the digital clock shift from 11:59 to 12:00

after a hard bicycle ride into fading daylight

followed by dinner and beer among those friends

and then i notice the familiar shape of you in my bed

although we haven’t seen each other in over a year

although you belong now completely to someone else

you stir awake and smile at me through a stretch-yawn

don’t shower you purr still yawning slide in with me

it’s been so long since we’ve held each other you know

ii. dreaming

[as i dream i begin to wonder if i am dreaming]

i lie on the couch alone

watching my DVD of David Lynch’s Lost Highways

i am also re-reading Haruki Murakami’s A Wild Sheep Chase

this time it is the hardback first edition i bought for you

between the film and the novel

coursing through dreaming and contemplating if this is a dream

i think about the possibility of worm holes

and children sliding through giant tubes at the playground

iii. morning

i wake to the smell of coffee brewing

but no one has started the coffee maker

and then i am standing outside in cool spring sunshine

the dew-covered grass almost too green to bear

you were no longer in the bed beside me (of course)

i cannot be sure if we were really intertwined last night

although your voice rests in the hollow of my ears

and then i suddenly drop into an imagined scene

i return to the bedroom for your clothes in the hamper

i wash and then dry them before separating each piece

i smooth your t-shirts carefully straightening the hems

before stacking them over the back of the recliner

thinking of your cat bringing mice to your doormat

gestures of love and devotion offered on padded feet

creature of habit in these rituals of recreation

i start the coffee and inhale the you of entered rooms