After you've surrendered to pillows and I, that second whiskey, on the way to bed I trace my fingers over a thermostat we dare not turn up. You have stolen what we call the green thing— too thick to be a blanket, too soft to be a rug— turned away, mid-dream. Yet your legs still reach for my legs, folding them quick to your accumulated heat. These days only a word can earn overtime. Economy: once a net, now a handful of holes. Economy: what a man moves with when, even in sleep, he is trying to save all there is left to save.
Copyright © 2012 by Sandra Beasley. Used with permission of the author.