Sleeping With You

your eyelashes are still black and gold

even when I’m so scared i don’t know

what to do 

your chin and cheeks and nose are still so quiet 

when you sleep so deeply i get scared,

i get scared.

i check your chest to make sure 

and i feel like dying right now just to 

postpone my awakening

your hair points in the middle like a v

they call it a widows peak

and sometimes when you sleep i want to cut it off

because the idea of being your widow

makes me weep

makes me feel

too weak

inside it’s awakening.

(written for Andrea Hawkins (my now wife) in 2015).