Thermal - Arve Henriksen

Morning, you lay sleeping

Your small body clinging tightly to mine

With frightening dependency

Life defining, impossible to betray

And with that…

The mattress rose

Set adrift on the burgeoning emotional tide

Colliding with the once stationary objects

Of an uninhabited life

What had been concealed

Was exhaled from god knows where

Colour-drained, unsalvageable

Shape shifting

And, with function relinquished

Resigned from service

Two blue sleeping bags

Nudged against one another

Bearing the once warm imprint of our bodies

The sun-baked stone garden

Retracted its promise

It was cold in that place of perpetual summer

If you were afraid you didn’t show it

You who were born bearing the face

Of irrepressible grief

So as not to disappoint you

I lay motionless

Rapt by the rise and stall of your breathing

Your fingertips and thighs

Quietly affirming my place at your side