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Four a.m. Night is greasing the streets.
The breath of all the sleeping people
hangs over town and I wait on red
at deserted crossroads for nobody.
The moon is tangled in a net of clouds.
I will go back to bed, and you
will sleep on the plane.
I will wake up to the familiar
– the heating coming on,
creaking and stretching
like you when prodded awake,
muttering and grumbling
like you at the petty autocracy of a clock.
I will hear life in its arteries,
the audible thump of its heart,
feel how the wood under my bare feet
has the warmth of skin.
From Brittle Star No 9 (Summer 2004)