THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE UNMADE BED

Sheets posed, immaculate, stretched like skin,

A sealed envelope tucked and folded, broken into.

A journey  begun makes outcasts of the prepared;  
covers rucked- a disorder of  sleep and lust.

We are adrift on this altar of broken slats,

sagging foam, dipping like a pot holed road,

a gradient that  slides our sleep.

The headboard, an ugly tombstone,

rattles to our oblivion, drums against the wall.

Afterwards, in furrows, we find crumbs,

and search for love’s lost trinkets;

an earring, hair pins, a tiny Fatima’s hand pointing

to  stains of darkening continents, kohl,

a long, dark hair curling - a river discovering itself,

In the microbus, along the Corniche,
where a pharoah wept 

and  waves mount concrete,

I sense the bed in mourning,

imprints of our limbs fading,

a fallow field awaiting spring.

Beyond its borders we are lost, untangled.

The day shortens like a burning cigarette.

We turn back to what has started:

an opened letter, hardly read.