Jealousy Of Night

by Rochelle Cunningham
© July 2010

There is a man out there…

…who conjures midnight reminders of my desire to possess him – still.
From the barren pillow sharing my bed, a warm phantom rises to wake me. Without a word, he takes my sleepy hand in his and leads me down another woman’s path.

There is a man out there…

…who refuses to abandon a dream that naps quietly on a dusty shelf in someone’s basement. He’s caught clawing at the blank pages of a bedside journal – unwilling to turn on the lamp. And his breath weighs heavy on the back of a sleeping poets mind.

There is a man out there…

…who assembles broken memories that crash on the shores of desperation. Wrestling with the rising tide he sails the course of a barely beating heart toward the horizon of a forbidden kiss. A swell in the stillness of the room uncovers a woman’s face and stirs the bedroom curtains as a reminder of troubled waters ahead.

There is a man out there…

…who lingers where he does not belong; unwilling to shake hands with the silence of night, he makes his escape on the tail-wind of dawn’s golden braid.

I wake to his lullaby humming a tune on my ceiling fan and arise hung-over from jealousy of night.