I brought the sheet from home
but not them—
the little one who pinches my breasts
with cold fingers and
pushes the blankets off us both
even as I pull them back,
all night long.
And the bigger boy, rolled
in his own blanket with his face
to the wall,
who kicks me in the darkness
with untrimmed toenails.
From their parted lips, the slow
sweet breath of corpses.
In this stranger’s thin bed
I keep waking,
arms hanging off to emptiness
on both sides, while
on the floor, the white stripes of dawn
brighten like steel
and lie heavy,
as if I could hold them
the light
in both hands.
