you can’t make this stuff up
(i mean you could
with a little imagination
and if you drank just the right amount
of cheap, cold beer
before you settled in
to think
but it wouldn’t be real then
and this is)

-as real as it gets
without shoving over to the other side
where it becomes philosophy
and then religion
and the opposite,
then
of anything remotely
true-
anyway.

scattered around, little heads and dark, slow breaths
half-awake, courting sleep
lazy in the knowledge
that school is out tomorrow
their stocking feet dangle
over torn arms of old sofas
a cat curled here in the nook of one elbow
a stuffed cow tossed carelessly
down near a hip
clean fingernails
and slightly stained t-shirts
smelling, still
of cold air and laundry soap
one dim light burning
fights off the night

in here, the bulb burns like sunlight
too bright for me now, but i’ll live, till it’s time to shut down
-words are extraneous

past my screen, he is split apart
one blue eye
a curl of dark hair
wedding ring catching the too-bright light, holding it
his sleeve shifts and shows me a second of ink
on his arm, and i look away

memorized long ago
all of this, every blink
every shift of a tiny hand, twitching in dreams
every mumbled curse, tapping at keys in frustration
every long, tired sigh
that replaces the worn-out air in the room with
whatever it is
that we are
as we settle, perfection,
down into sleep.