Everything Gets Worse
Sept 22 2009


Everything gets worse
at night.
In the murky muffled quiet
of your queen-sized bed.
On sheets
you can’t remember changing,
a comforter
that’s way too hot,
the itch can drive you crazy.
The pain
that says metastases, a heart attack
some gruesome infestation.
Or grief’s
unbearable weight.
When sleep, that sweet escape
won’t take you.

If you’re alone
you think of neighbours,
eventually calling the cops
— the door locked,
the mail untouched,
the pervasive smell
of rot.

If you have company
whose name you just forgot,
you lie beside her, wondering
will she flee
or stop?

And if she’s your lover, your wife
you want to believe
she’ll hold you,
stroke your hair,
spoon your body against her
until dawn,
when the busyness keeps you from thinking,
the cold grey light
makes you small
again.

Then Saturday, you sleep all day
catching up;
the curtains
flung-open wide,
every dust-ball
illuminated.
When the monster under the bed
recoils from the light,
squeezed
into one tiny corner.