Susan Wicks
3 a.m.
I wake to a jolt
of something like shame,
the mattress under my spine
pulsing heat,
the sweat
a seethe of ants under my skin
as if in a dream
my body itself
were trying to relive
the mistakes of years.
I throw back the quilt
and air laps me awake,
flows over my face,
my fingers, my spread thighs,
my slowing heart.
I think of cold
clean things, frost
feathering the white ground,
the cars parked nose to tail
on the street outside,
their windscreens furred,
the wiper blades iced hard
and I curl in
to your smooth back
that is still itself
and smells of skin
and cotton, chlorine, tarka dhal
and luck.
Page(s) 58
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