Standing in the corner of this room
I am affecting absence.
I want shadow to make it pure,
purer than hiding,
than spying,
than simply filling space.

I do not want to interfere
with what is happening before me -
your chest is rising,
your chest is sinking,
a symphony of heavy breathing
under wrinkled sheets,
no hint of coloured dream
upon your face.

All this holds me still.

but I am heavy now,
suddenly so full of noise -
a presence at the corner of the room,
a cumbersome intruder,
a woken soul,
a broken sleep,
a callous mass of shape and sound
unveiled by the moon

You turn onto your side,
and our planet spins.

After lying mute beside you
I found courage to detach,
to remove my hungry figure from
your bed
and step back.
it was an exercise in longing,
in savouring the taste,
but now you overwhelm me,
lying perfectly in place

what brought me here,
to this bed,
to this flesh
in pale light?
how did I chance it,
trick you,
touch you -
the sleeping tyrant of famished waking eyes?

in the morning
the distance of this room
will be returned
to arms and inches,
and journeys will be remade
in bodies and in carriages,
but this -
the awful beauty of your moonlit slumber,
and the space between,
charged with dream and aching hunger -
it will haunt,
and play again,
till I am nothing
more than silenced lover,
conducting movements in
your all-consuming name.