Every night I sleep on alternate
sides of the bed, as if to duplicate
sleeping with you. If
I'm fast enough, I'm the warmth
of my own body beside me, reach
out and touch myself. Breach
the blue of my bones, breathe in my own ear.
You left me. Lying here,
I left you to be with me.
Someone asks if your body
was worth trading for mine.
My sin was always pride.
Did you want a man that sleeps
with himself to keep
the bed warm? I need you like the earth
needed the flood after dearth
Copyright © 2014 by Gary Jackson. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-A-Day on March 27, 2014. Browse the Poem-A-Day archive.