At midnight, I'm still awake, 

waiting on sleep’s blurred 

hypnagogic state,

a fleeting mirage like journey

crossing at nightfall.

I stretch to cut the bed diagonally, 

her legs retract unconscious

beneath her folded sleeping body.

A knot of blue sky fills my gut,

a worryglow from earlier, flittering 

like a young fish 

 

I sit up, anchored at the bed’s edge, 

peering for moon glints

through wooden venetian slats. 

I still ponder Hirayama's 

overlapped shadows, unconvinced,

but loving the life instilled in their darkness.

I read to the soundtrack of her breathing.

My Kindle light clicks slowly.

I never understood the rush 

in reading a beautiful book,

like the moon, I feel like howling 

as its setting approaches.

 

At four, to dream I’d drifted

beyond the nights thin veil, like a surfer 

skimming a curved sunlit wave.

Shouts from the shore

formed echoes of childhood 

like a mothers cry, I try to swim 

aware I’d been searching

like repeats, I replay knowing

I’ve been here before. 

I spot her like a colour splash,

a flower against a mottled grey sky.

I wake thinking of home,

a child holding her hand.