I Never could sleep like this,
her body like a palm,
open to embrace the world’s palm.
Girl and the night lie entwined.
Night a sheet coiled round her,
yet who is the entrapper?
Young man longs to be
that other palm over her.
The world, to stem this surging
flood of life, invokes the night.
But young man is now palm,
clenched fist, unsteady hand,
holding up a falling sky,
so that she must become
the soothing one.
And perhaps she and the night
still find him charming
as he insists on these contests of strength,
dreams of fighting demons for her,
of waking grateful sleeping beauties.
For she clings to him still, sometimes.
But then,
as if sliding out of a
gown that is now too cloying,
she slips away, into nakedness.
And the night passes
a palm over her dark eyes.
Copyright Ricky Barrow 2013
