Where shall we sleep tonight?

​

I.

your brown body lies easy

across our bed

in my room

where our two lives meet

babies created there

tears given and refused

only one night we slept

on the pillows of anger

 

no matter what else

our lives

have done apart

we lie there

looking at the dark

together

remembering each day

at least this once

 

we touch

each other’s depths

i understand your deamons

you recognize my visions

it means something

to sleep next to you

really sleep

i trust you with my dreams

 

I want you in our bed

To warm my feet and ass

To hold my body

but this is my room

to write

and I do not want you

here tonight

still you come

 

to rest in our bed

you have learned to be hushed

but I can feel you press on me

from the far side of the room

unafraid

i have met myself

in these dark hours

with awareness you woke in me

 

my voice is clear

spreads fluidly

reaching from paper

to wall ceiling down

and I want to be alone

 

II.

after so many years

when you walk away from me

i follow asking what are you mad about

you tell me nothing i do not believe

you are going to your own room again

alone with you books and silence

while i sit in mine words falling into poems

pushing down on keys that splay me on the page

where others will see

 

my fingers turn minutes into paper eons

in the middle of the almost full moon night

i crawl over your sleeping body

to my side of your bed

my desires fold our bodies together

yet i am glad you have committed

yourself to dreaming in the

curve you pressed into the bed

 

this space between us has spread

stretched farther than ever it has

we watch each other across busy lives

alert to danger but knowing

our feet are steady on solid ground

traveling the same direction

but tonight we do not consummate our bonds

you roll over encircle me in your warmth

sleep slides over us

giving ourselves to the night and the knowing of each other

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Sharon Lopez Mooney, ‘Where shall we sleep tonight?’, From The Avalon Literary Review, ed. Valerie Rubino, 2021 Spring, Orlando, FL